Disseminating Innovative STRategIes for Capitalization of Targeted Good Practices
European regions need to restructure their economies from traditional manufacturing industry towards a new model of development based on knowledge and innovation. The objective of the project will be the exchange of experiences and good practices (GPs) among regional partners to improve the effectiveness of regional policies in the areas of innovation, research and technological development. The project will build upon the experiences gained by the partners through their regional development programmes and former european projects such as the Interreg IIIC DISTRICT RFO to capitalise consolidated GPs and improve the partners policy capacity to:
- modernise traditional manufacturing sectors through product innovation and internasionalisation strategies for global competitiveness;
- foster the interaction between knowledge providers and enterprises to increase the innovation capability of firms with a focus on eco-innovation;
- provide innovative financial products and services and support innovative entrepreneurship for young researchers;
- develop regional innovation skills through professional training in the field of innovation management;
- build regional and local strategic planning capacity in front of global transitions through foresight techniques and technological audit.

The partnership will include six regional public authorities that are in charge of managing the 2007-2013 ERDF Regional Operational Programmes: Lead Partner Tuscany (IT), West Midlands (UK), Saxony-Anhalt (DE), Vastra Gotaland (SE), Lower Silesia (PL) and Brasov County (RU). This mix of convergence (Obj. 1) and competitiveness (Obj. 2) regions will increase the network’s added-value in terms of policy impact.

To achieve its results the project will implement an intense schedule of interregional activities (thematic workshops and study visits, joint interregional training sessions, etc.)  to exchange policy experience between more and less advanced regions. It will
specially focus on the capitalisation of GPs in lagging regions such as those belonging to new MS that are in the process of managing their first large scale multi-annual ERDF ROPs.

As a miniprogramme, the project will support a limited number of sub-projects (SPs) in the above policy areas. SPs will provide an additional platform for interregional cooperation by exchanging experiences and GPs at the local level. They will involve a high number of regional and local public authorities that are in charge of managing local development initiatives (e.g., territorial or sectorial good practices) and other relevant actors and stakeholders belonging to the different regions.  SPs will be selected through interregional calls for proposals and will deliver their results to the partners regional authorities.
Outputs will include: GPs transferability handbook; strategic guidelines for policy-makers with policy recommendations; policy/GP feasibility studies for pilot action in target regions.