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Dr. Peter Best

State Chancellery of Niedersachsen

International Co-operation and European Affairs

D- 30169 Hannover, Germany

OPEN DAYS 2005, Partners on Innovation

Workshop 1: Innovation: the way to regional competitiveness

Presentation Brussels 11 October

A. Foresight and the Transition to Regional knowledge-based economies:

1. The process of regional mobilisation and participatory consultation

Regions have to take their future in hand. They must succeed in uniting the stakeholders and decision makers in the region around a shared vision and project.

For the knowledge economy, the real challenge is the mobilization of all the players in the territory.

We must request a process of collective reflection and consultation, because it involves a participatory dimension. It makes it possible not only to develop a strategy, but also to ensure the indispensable ownership of the project and the undertaking concerned.

The future of a region depends on:

  • its national, European and global environment, as much as the external drivers (major trends and uncertainties), which have a particular impact on the region;
  • its own dynamic resulting from internal drivers, shaping actors and factors;
  • the conflicting strategies of the different actors having an impact on the region.

2. The strategic approach of foresight exercise and new governance

In relation to the specific dynamic of the region, we need a foresight exercise:

  • to identify the long term spontaneous dynamic of the region (diagnostic) and its possible futures (anticipation);
  • to promote a debate among the stakeholders as to gradually elaborate a shared vision of a desirable future and create a consensus on how to achieve it, who should do what, when and how.
  • to launch a process whereby the actors of the region may share a common vision of ad desirable future for the region (project) and hence may adopt – instead of conflicting strategies – a common strategy to achieve it.
  • One consequence of this is that companies need to change their innovation strategies fundamentally
  • Another consequence is that public administrations need to adjust their innovation support portfolios, especially for SMEs. Otherwise it will be difficult to ensure that companies continue to successfully maintain their competitiveness under the new framework conditions. As an essential part of this reorientation new models for trans-regional technology transfer are needed.

Foresight contributes to improving the quality of governance by activating the stakeholders and citizens of a region. Our experience shows that the potential partners are either sleeping or wasting most of their energy on short term conflicts, in many cases on issues which are of little importance to the future of the region. Regional authorities have a key role to play in communicating policy related inputs., when they involve regionally based stakeholders in a strategic discourse of deliberation.

Foresight is the key to strengthening collective learning capacity by developing competence in political institutions.

One example is the demographic issue: Whilst the population of working age (15 to 64) in the EU will fall in the next fifty years by some 40 million people, the number of elderly people aged 65 and over will increase by about the same number. As a result, the old age dependency ration will double from 24% in 2000 to 49% in 2050.The region of Niedersachsen is much concerned about it.

3. Technological and socio-cultural dimension of the process of innovation

Innovation is a cornerstone of the Lisbon strategy launched by the European Council in March 2000It should be noted that innovation is a complex process involving a technological as well as a socio cultural dimension. The dynamics of a firm or a territory can only be changed at the speed at which behavior, organizations and management evolve.

The Lisbon Agenda launched in 2000 and further developed in annual European Spring Councils outlines sustainable development as the transformation of the EU into a dynamic knowledge based economy which is characterized by entrepreneurship and competitiveness with continued commitment to sustainable use and management of resources and environment protection.

Although research and innovation policy is mainly defined and implemented on regional and national level, there are a number of issues that can best be dealt with on European level through co-operation between the Commission and Member States. Main thrusts of EU research and innovation policy include:

  • Completing the European Research and Innovation Area, acting as an internal market for research and technology, as well as a space for a better co-ordination of national and regional research activities and policies, to overcome the present fragmentation and publication of research efforts in Europe.
  • SMEs in particular. The New Action Plan for Innovation “Innovate for a Competitive Europe” states that the action plan will seek to “place the enterprise at the centre of innovation policy” by focusing on key issues relevant to innovation processes inside companies.

Following the Lisbon Council, EU regional policy is characterized by the attempt to successfully integrate the two (potentially partly conflicting) objectives of competitiveness and cohesion.

4. Public-Private Partnership as a core element of the Innovation Agenda

It is a fact that two thirds are coming from private investment and one third from public investment. In order to achieve the priorities of EU innovation, PPP policy is indispensable as well as new instruments of financial engineering.

5. Transregional integration and transnational co-operation are the cornerstones for innovative RTD

To develop their potential, regions need to widen their focus and go beyond their own innovation landscape to explore the European and cross-border dimension to the full.

Regions must work together in order to stimulate higher growth with more and better qualified jobs. However, efficient co-ordination of regional innovation policies, involvement of stakeholders enhancement of innovation networks and hence improved transregional cooperation are needed to build future oriented and competitive regions.

Therefore, a change of mind-setstowards the four objectives: Mobility, Flexibility, Innovation and International co-operation might be helpful. The strong partnership between Niedersachsen and 6 Dutch provincies and 8 further regions of EU 25 within the Hanse Passage Program is really a good pathfinder for implementing the cluster approach.

Successful innovation relies on the transfer of science, research and professional entrepreneurship. Trans-regional knowledge transfer between enterprises, universities and technology organizations will become usual practice. We need networks as interlinked centers of trans-regional technological, scientific and entrepreneurial excellence. Clusters will be as well trans-regional, since small regions cannot survive on their own. Regions will essentially be defined by clusters. This is needed for the promotion of supra-regional cooperation to foster regional competitiveness. Improved direct communication between disciplines will facilitate interdisciplinary work. The increasing multidisciplinary nature of new technologies may be tackled by combining specialized competencies of some regions.

6. The innovative momentum in the cohesion policy after 2006.

Facing the Structural Funds contribution after 2007, all regions must prepare already for the 2007 horizon, which will require both a change in mentality and a structural adaptation to the new framework conditions. Facing the challenges we all have to learn together how to keep the innovative momentum in assisting small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to acquire technologies from other countries or to offer their own technologies in foreign markets. RTD will be a heavy duty activity in future. Niedersachsen demands for a ‘demystification’ of the innovative momentum. We need both: High-Tech innovation including a consistent approach between Structural Funds and 7th Framework Programme as well as the ‘normal standard’ of innovation on the ground of SMEs (bottom-up innovation).

B.The innovative catalysts for Niedersachsen‘s commercial and industrial potential are the following:

  • public-sector modernization: deregulation and cutting the red tape of bureaucracy
  • vehicle construction and technology industry including the automotive sector with many plants: Germany’s top automobile state and one of Europe’s main car industry centers.
  • Trade Fairs in Hannover (international computer fair, CeBIT, and the Hannover industry trade fair globally linked with CeBIT Asia, CeBIT Australia and the Biotechnica fair in Singapore.
  • shipbuilding of luxurious cruise vessels in Papenburg as a source for regional suppliers in various branches
  • aerospace development along the Weser and Elbe rivers closely involved in the production chain for the new 380 Airbus and at the Research Airport Brunswick
  • Wilhelmshaven deep-sea port (Jade-Weser Port): the new mega-project is scheduled to begin operating in 2009-10 as a future hub of trade with Asian and American container ships.
  • The vibrant economy at the very crossroads of commerce in the enlarged Europe demands for logistics, transportation facilities as a focus for the 4 objectives: Mobility, Flexibility, Innovation and International co-operation
  • Strong cross-border activities with the Dutch partner regions
  • Research and technological Development (RTD), one of Germany’s leading locations for biotechnology and bioscience, with a particular concentration in the „research triangle“ between Hanover, Brunswick and Göttingen and a lot of linked scientific activities in other fields: 120 non-university research institutes
  • Agricultural and food industry
  • Germany’s leading state for wind power – we now have over 4,300 plants with an installed capacity of around 4,500 megawatts
  • The strategy of spin-offs and spill-over in the RTD sector for SME’s offers diversity and possibilities. In supporting start-ups the catalysts are the Knowledge and Technology Transfer networks as expert advisory centres within the research landscape (Universities, Max-Planck-Institutes ,Measurement Valley Göttingen etc.). The Maglev technology as a RTD concept would be a fine example of EU’s competitiveness because of its innovative application for electronic drive and control engineering, automotive sector, computer-integrated manufacturing, aviation industry etc.
  • Innovation and Public- Private Partnership are the motor for growth and competitiveness. By combining innovation with these networks, incentives for a promotion- culture for new business and jobs are created.

Summary:

As lessons learnt from Europe, Niedersachsen in renewing the basis of its competitiveness aims to increase its growth potential and its productivity on knowledge,innovation and the optimisation of human capital.

To achieve these objectives, the region will mobilise all appropriate national and Community resources – including the cohesion policy and the 7th Framework Programme – in the European setting.

What we need, is a real and vivid dialoguein the partnerships between the Commission, the European Parliament, the Member States and the regions in a clearer and more decentralised sharing of responsibilities, deregulation and more simplicications in areas such as financial management.