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ARC Fund started the RIS (Regional Innovation Strategy) initiative
in October 2001 as a joint project involving the Regional
Commission for Economic and Social Cohesion of the South Central
Region of Bulgaria, the Ministry of Regional Development and
Public Works, tti Magdeburg GmbH - a company which had implemented
a similar RIS RAHM for the land of Saxony-Anhalt in Germany,
and the University of Thessaly, which manages the RIS of Thessaly
in Greece. ARC Fund coordinates the activities of this consortium.
The project is expected to produce a regional innovation
strategy with a corresponding Action Plan for the South Central
Region of Bulgaria. This strategy will provide the basis for
enhancing the innovative capacity of the region and will facilitate
its integration with the Network of Innovating Regions in
Europe, currently involving almost 120 regions across Europe.
The RIS Mission
The mission of the project is to define a strategic framework
for the South Central Region of Bulgaria with the goal of
improving the innovative capacity of regional firms, the regional
workforce and institutions. The overall objective is to create
a climate conducive to innovation in the South Central Region
through further developing and improving the regional innovation
system by proposing feasible measures to secure economic growth,
competitiveness and employment in the region. One of the key
questions addressed by the RIS/SC-Bg initiative is the importance
of matching the regional companies' needs for innovation support
with the supply of such support.
Benefits /Major achievements
The project is aimed at producing the following end results:
Establish an innovation community with many participating
actors in the region;
Set the ground for future planning of investments in regional
innovation and R&D - i.e. development of non-material
regional infrastructure;
Contribute to an improved regional innovation infrastructure
that increases the flexibility of the labour market and
the attractiveness of the region to foreign investments.
The final beneficiaries will be all existing and future
firms, which will operate in a better environment;
Improve the strategic planning culture of the region by
placing innovation on top of the regional development agenda;
Improve the cooperation and networking among the regional
and national key actors;
Facilitate greater cooperation with the EU partnering
regions in the field of innovation, R&D, and technology
transfer. This collaboration could lay the groundwork for
joint high-quality project proposals under different bilateral
and international programs;
Initiate new RIS projects for other Bulgarian regions
under the EU Sixth Framework Program for Research, Technology
and Demonstration.
Links: www.innovation.bg,
www.innovating-regions.org
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