Promoting Cross-Innovation in European Cities and Regions
ABOUT PROJECT CROSS-INNOVATION

Project Cross-Innovation focusses on experience exchange between 11 leading European cities in relation to the promotion of collaborative and user-driven innovation that happens across sectoral, organisational, technological and geographic boundaries (= cross-innovation). In this context, a specific focus rests on policies and support measures that enable cross-innovation and creative spillovers between creative sectors and other industries. The partnership consists of 11 metropolitan hotspots that have the potential to put cross-innovation on the top of local and regional policy agendas across Europe: Birmingham, Amsterdam, Rome, Berlin, Tallinn, Warsaw, Vilnius, Stockholm, Linz, Lisbon, Plzen.

Cross-Innovation is a key policy priority of EU 2020 and its flagship initiative Innovation Union. Improving metropolitan cities' expertise in this field will help meet the Lisbon and Gothenbourg objectives underpinning INTERREG IVC.
The project focusses on practices in 4 sub-themes:

• Smart Incentives - innovative types of finance that enable cross-innovation
• Culture-based Innovation - schemes that unleash innovation in business and the public sector by introducing artistic and creative practices
• Brokerage - services that build bridges between sectors by connecting cross innovation enablers with beneficiaries
• Spatial Cross-Collaboration - services offered to companies in co-working spaces, incubators, fab-labs, science parks and to local clusters 

Each partner champions such practices in its respective city. To further learn about them the partnership will put in place a participative programme of experience-exchange events designed to stimulate high levels of stakeholder buy-in from diverse domains of the innovation eco-system. It will seek to improve local policies through "cross-innovation policy clinics".
Cross innovation with SMEs will run throughout the project (C3C). It will examine how local support can enable companies that operate in co-working spaces and incubators to collaborate in order to develop their products and services for other markets and overcome EU market fragmentation.

PROJECT CROSS-INNOVATION IN A NUTSHELL

• 11 leading cities that champion cross-innovation
• Linking creative sectors such as games, design, audiovisual, digital media, advertising, etc. - to "beneficiary" sectors to improve innovation capacities
• Breaking down "silo-thinking" between governmental departments as well as in business and industry
• Innovative site visits, policy events and a pilot in relation to the above policy sub-themes
• A social media strategy that triggers a bottom-up cross-innovation policy movement across the EU
• Collaboration agreements with EUROCITIES and the European Creative Business Network to increase outreach and impact
• 11 local implementation plans