Warsaw, April 2008
The first PRO INNO Europe® partnering event treated, in presence of a broad audience of innovation policy makers and innovation support actors from around Europe, a variety of themes with relevance to setting up and running transnational innovation policy support cooperations. Notably inspired by experiences and suggestions from the 2006-launched INNO-Nets and INNO-Actions, views and recommendations were exchanged on: how joint calls and initiatives should be organised and implemented; the main issues to take into consideration when defining a project exit strategy; and how to assist regions and innovation actors to strengthen their internationalisation processes and joint projects.
The partnering event also laid the basis for crafting a new mission statement for the PRO INNO Europe® initiative, which should aspire to become the focal point for innovation policy analysis, and learning and development in Europe. In that regard, the promotion of transnational innovation policy cooperation and learning between innovation support agencies was proclaimed as vital.
Related to that, the importance of partnership, trust and openness was emphasized. In that sense, and like companies are practising more and more ‘open innovation’, also innovation agencies need to open up to each other strategically and selectively. No single (support) organisation has all the good ideas, so collaboration can leverage a pool of ideas, resources and strengths and is a promising tool for generating synergies for the benefit of Europe. Further discussion rounds dealt with emerging topics like: 'Innovation in Services', 'Partnering between Innovation Agencies', and 'Support for the European Lead Market Initiative'.
The event was closed with a visit to Wilanow Royal Palace, courtesy of the Marshall of the Mazowieckie Region.
