NEWS FROM THE CLUSTER
Regional Innovation Valleys: Emilia-Romagna is among the 151 regions identified
The European Commission has identified 151 regions as “Regional Innovation Valleys” (RIVs) under the New European Innovation Agenda (NEIA). By bringing together a range of regions across Europe with different levels of innovation and connecting their key innovation actors, the RIVs aim to strengthen regional innovation ecosystems, close the innovation gap in Europe and improve Europe’s overall innovation performance.
Among them, Emilia-Romagna has been selected also thanks to its participation as a partner in the European project PRECISEU, an initiative involving 25 partners from 12 regions of 10 European countries. An acronym for “PeRsonalised medicine Empowerment Connecting Innovation ecoSystems across Europe“, it is one of the winning projects within the Regional Innovation Valleys initiative.
The regions selected to receive the RIV label have committed themselves to:
- Strengthen their research and innovation (R&I) ecosystem
- Improve the coordination and directionality of research and innovation policy and investment towards key EU priorities
- Engage in research and innovation collaboration between more and less advanced regions with complementary smart specialisations (S3).
These actions are carried out by regions focusing on the challenges faced by the EU, as outlined in the NEIA. These include reducing dependence on fossil fuels, increasing global food security, mastering digital transformation (including cyber security), improving healthcare and increasing circularity.
The EU will support this initiative with EUR 116 million under the European Innovation Ecosystems (EIE) programme of Horizon Europe, the EU Research and Innovation Programme and the Interregional Innovation Investments (I3) instrument of the European Regional Development Fund.
RIVs are an action under the NEIA 3 initiative, which is based on on the EIE Work Programme under Horizon Europe and I3 instrument under European Regional Development Fund. It focuses on connecting regions across the EU and beyond to strengthen their innovation ecosystem and create new EU value chains to contribute to key EU priorities.
Besides funding, the European Commission will also support these regions through community building activities, matchmaking events and targeted communication actions.
New European Innovation Agenda (NEIA)
Innovation is a cross-cutting priority contributing to the green and digital transition, European competitiveness, economic security and open strategic autonomy. In July 2022, the Commission launched the NEIA to put Europe at the forefront of the new wave of high-tech innovation. The 25 actions proposed in the NEIA, grouped into five flagship areas, aim to:
- improve funding for deep-tech scale-ups
- enabling deep-tech innovation through experimentation spaces and public procurement
- accelerating and strengthening innovation in European innovation ecosystems across the EU and addressing the innovation divide
- fostering, attracting and retaining deep-tech talents
- improving policy-making tools.
>> See here the list of regions identified as Regional Innovation Valleys
