Creative regional policies addressing economic development opportunities related to aging societies
Creative regional policies addressing economic development opportunities related to ageing societies is the goal of CREATOR. We focus on maintaining/further enhancing the competitiveness of the regional economies and at ensuring the regions long-term social cohesion, mainly through exploring further the specific challenges resulting from a further aging of the regional populations and through pro-actively addressing distinct economic development opportunities that emerge from new needs of an increasingly ageing population”. In relation to goal, two sub-objectives will be pursued: (1) To exchange regional-level experiences & to establish a joint in-depth work processes on an “Adaptation and further diversification of the regional-level care/well-being sector to meet the needs of an increasingly ageing population living in rural and/or sparsely populated areas”, leading to a design of targeted policy strategies / support tools that help establishing a more adequate proximity care service
provision structure in the future. (2) To exchange regional-level experiences & to establish a joint in-depth work processes on “Innovative/technology-intensive SMEs developing specific products / services meeting the needs of an increasingly ageing population”, leading to a design of targeted policy strategies / support tools that help stimulating a closer interaction between existing regional innovative systems and companies active on this particular market segment.
The partnership has decided to establish a strategic co-operation approach at the highest level of intensity, being the same time well-focused and cross-cutting in nature. The strategic focus of CREATOR is addressed at the two main levels of joint inter-action, i.e. a continuous exchange of regional-level experiences / a joint in-depth work process on the project’s sub-objectives and the implementation of co-operative Sub Projects. As examples three sub-topics are defined in relation to every sub-objective
CREATOR’s overall approach is innovative, as the project brings together European regions having accentuated differences with respect to their awareness about / capacities for addressing economic development opportunities emerging from new needs of a further aging society. Also the expected co-operation results will be innovative in various respects, i.e. they (1) help taking greater advantage of distinct economic development potentials geared towards meeting these new needs, (2) to initiate new learning processes in areas that still have to built up endogenous potentials / capacities and (3) to identify & transfer good practices helping to establish innovative/ technology-intensive products & new service provision approaches in areas where this did not exist before. To maintain the innovative character of CREATOR and its complementarity, contacts will be established with approved / future INTERREG projects addressing issues related to demographic change.