The Logistics Forum aims to activate and organise different private and public stakeholders to establish shared strategies for managing and improving logistics in the region in order to create an economic and environmental win-win situation.
The Aviation Valley Association was created in 2003 by a group of local entrepreneurs with the aim of making Podkarpackie, Poland, one of the leading aviation regions in Europe, along with already existing aviation clusters such as those in Toulouse and Bordeaux in France. The principle tool for reaching this vision was to build a strong regional cluster allowing for better exploitation of regional potential. In this context, the Aviation Valley project activities were aimed at supporting an initial phase of cluster development with the focus on enhanced communication mechanisms within the cluster as well as improved presentation to the outside world, most notably to potential investors.
The aim of the STIMENT project was to strengthen entrepreneurship potential in the regions of Övre Norrland in Sweden, Lorraine in France, Wielkopolska in Poland, Häme in Finland and Brescia in Italy. The regions share a common history of undergoing structural changes since the 1970s and most of them have a weak tradition of entrepreneurship. This case study focuses mainly on the Swedish Övre Norrland perspective on STIMENT.
En améliorant la qualité nutritionnelle de leurs produits, les entreprises bretonnes contribuent à la politique nationale de santé et modifient l'image de la Bretagne. Seconde région agricole française, la Bretagne est en effet dotée d'une production industrielle techniquement avancé mais jusqu'à présent peu innovante en matière de nutrition santé.
Pour être compétitive, les entreprises doivent disposer rapidement d'une information complète sur la situation des marchés, de la concurrence, de la technologie, de la réglementation. Le projet DECILOR Santé donne aux entreprises lorraines de la filière santé un accès à des services de soutien et d'information ciblés, en vue de les amener à gérer de façon autonome l’information stratégique.
In the region of North Sweden, the Luleå University of Technology worked together with SMEs in the region to initiate a structural change to their products to include more embedded electronics capable of Internet communication.
Yorkshire's Knowledge RICH programme captured the scientific and technological knowledge and expertise of the region's universities and delivered this knowledge via an online portal. It was delivered directly to businesses and business support communities of the region, with the aim of accelerating the uptake of technological innovation.
The Knowledge Cluster is an ERDF co-financed project implemented by the i-City Living Lab based in Hasselt in the region of Flanders, Belgium. Founded in 2004, i-City is a fullyfledged, internationally recognised living lab with a focus on testing, demonstrating and valorising innovative applications and services for a mobile user. To support those activities i-City develops and maintains a state of the art infrastructure (both hardware and software), a large population of dedicated test users, an experienced staff and a unique ecosystem facilitating collaboration. As a living lab one of the objectives is to help to bridge the gap between research and market, developing and testing applications, which correspond to a real market demand and meet the needs of society. The laboratory closely cooperates with companies, working together with end-users who test potential future mobile applications. The cities of Hasselt and Leuven are converted into experimentation environments for future mobile applications with some 650 users equipped with personal handheld devices (PDAs) testing new applications in real life situations.
Multitel is an information technology centre of excellence located in the Province of Hainaut, Wallonia, Belgium. Since its creation in 1999, and thanks to a significant European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) contribution in this early phase of development, Multitel has become a key partner for firms in the region seeking to innovate. Indeed, the centre expects to generate revenue of €1.3m from industrial resources in 2007 (a five-fold increase since 2003), with firms employing less than a 100 people accounting for half of this revenues. In addition, the centre has sourced approximately €1.2m from European Union (EU) level contracts in 2007, notably through participating in 21 projects in the EU's 6th Research Framework Programme (FP6). The centre has pursued a deliberate strategy of complementing core applied research activities and technology development with companies with a portfolio of training services for companies (amounting to approximately 10% of sales of services to enterprises).
PASI (Pôle aquitain pour la société de l’information – Aquitaine forum for the Information Society) is a forum where individuals from different institutional horizons (central government services, regional and local authorities, and conurbations etc.) meet to exchange ideas, learn and reflect on the situation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in Aquitaine, France; and develop appropriate measures. This initiative exists since the beginning of 2004.