Regional policies for innovation driven competitiveness and growth of rural SMEs
REGIONAL SUPPORT TO ENGAGE RURAL ECONOMY SMES IN INNOVATION:
Rural economy SMEs face challenges in adopting innovation to increase their competitiveness. Regional policies need to correspondingly support the diffusion of innovative solutions and new business models that will lead to increases in productivity and access to new markets. INNOGROW regions are called to play an important role in supporting the modernisation of their existing rural SMEs and the proliferation of innovative start-ups.  

PROJECT OBJECTIVE:
INNOGROW brings together 9 partners from 8 countries, involving the managing authorities & regional bodies influencing regional and national policy instruments, to exchange experiences & practices, and to improve their capacity on implementing policies that promote the adoption of technology and business model innovations by rural economy SMEs, to boost their competitiveness. 

EXPECTED CHANGES:
- Enhanced innovation support services for over 5% of rural economy SMEs in partners’ regions. 
- Improved horizontal & vertical cooperation among SMEs in rural areas for products commercialisation. 
- Increased capacity of 200 staff of public administrations to effectively implement policies, stimulating innovation adoption by rural economy SMEs. 
- 10+Meuros of investments unlocked to promote innovative technologies & new business models.  

MAIN OUTPUTS & BENEFITS :
3 interregional workshops, 2 study visits & 1 EU regions summit to promote experiences exchanges of partners and stakeholders.  8 action plans to improve the addressed policy instruments, benefiting managing authorities and beneficiaries. 14 policy briefs to transfer INNOGROW lessons learnt to public authorities beyond the partnership. An online benchmarking tool for all EU territorial administrations, to facilitate optimisation of policy-making in the field of rural economy SMEs competiveness. 5 thematic studies & analyses on practices and measures that improve rural economy SMEs competitiveness.