Interregional Collaboration
History: The concept of interregional innovation corridors represents a recent evolution in EU policy, addressing the limited RoI of ad-hoc collaborations. Initiatives, such as the Vanguard initiative and Smart Specialisation Strategies, reveal the potential of leveraging regional complementarities to enhance competitiveness. Despite these efforts, achieving economically viable corridors has proven challenging. Obstacles are seen in aligning governance, securing funding, and harmonizing regional policies. Academic research highlights the importance of corridors in enhancing value chains and regional competitiveness, yet their success hinges on aligned strategies, robust governance, and sustainable funding models.
The challenge: EU collaboration holds immense potential to drive innovation, foster knowledge exchange, and leverage complementary strengths across regions. This is especially important with today’s need for sovereignty, increased competitiveness and innovation speed. It plays a crucial role in tackling challenges like climate change and digital transformation. Initiatives such as Smart Specialisation Strategies, Vanguard, macro-regional strategies like Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR) and the collaboration in the network of European Digital Innovation Hubs showcase the value of interregional cooperation for economic competitiveness and societal well-being. However, establishing structured collaborations and innovation corridors faces significant hurdles.
Aim: Reducing barriers for EU collaboration The aim of interregional innovation corridors is to establish structured, sustainable collaboration channels that reduce barriers to EU-wide partnerships. These corridors address key challenges and reduce fragmentation, externalities, and information asymmetries, by creating a foundation for long-term, purposeful engagements. They focus on leveraging regional complementarities to foster innovation, trust, and economic growth. Corridors aim to empower regions by enabling the continuous exchange of information, knowledge, technology, and resources while driving economic competitiveness and cohesion. By aligning governance and funding strategies, they reduce the high resource investments typically required for initiating EU collaborations, making these partnerships more accessible and viable. Corridors provide a framework for strategic alignment, shared value creation, and robust governance, ensuring that interregional collaborations deliver tangible impacts. Ultimately, the corridors lay the groundwork for innovation-driven growth and integrated regional development across Europe.
The framework is grounded in four building blocks. Mission provides shared objectives and alignment across regions, ensuring a clear and unified focus. Governance establishes structured decision-making processes, ensuring accountability, equitable participation, and efficient management. Cultural alignment fosters trust and mutual understanding, reducing friction and enhancing collaboration. Financial sustainability secures long-term funding through a combination of regional, national, and EU sources, addressing pre-investment needs and ensuring continuity.
Each region’s stakeholders—such as (European) Digital Innovation Hubs, competence centers, and enterprises—play pivotal roles in operationalizing the corridor. The framework is adaptable, supporting phased development from ad-hoc interactions to synchronized partnerships.
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