Description
An event co-organised by the European Commission's Directorate- Generals for 'Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs' and for 'Regional and Urban Policy', with the collaboration of the Valencia Region Authority
The European Commission's White Paper on the Future of Europe and the Start-up and Scale-up Communication outlined the need for more industrial cooperation and strategic connections between regional and local eco-systems. The Communication on smart specialisation calls for more strategic interregional cooperation and investment across regions. This conference thus takes place, when lessons are drawn on how smart specialisation strategies, the ESI funds investments and clusters have supported and can support growth in Europe's regions.
This conference therefore gathers over 300 policy-makers, the business community and cluster stakeholders to discuss novel ways of how to boost smart interregional collaboration through clusters towards more European "Silicon Valleys" and value chain linkages that bring benefits to regions and cities across Europe.
"GROW your REGIOn" is an opportunity to:
- share your smart specialisation and cluster experience and practices;
- exchange ideas about future actions for smart interregional collaboration; and
- learn about novel ways of supporting innovation and accelerating industrial modernisation and SME growth.
The event will bring together representatives of national and regional administrations acting as managing authorities for European Regional Development Funds and INTERREG secretariats as well as those responsible for national and regional cluster policies and initiatives, including cluster managers and business representatives engaged in European cluster partnerships and cluster projects.
Participants should expect a conference with a difference, where they will not just be listening to inspiring practice cases and speakers, but are invited to actively contribute, collaborate and co-create. It follows in the footsteps of the successful first edition organised in 2015 in Brussels.
This second edition of #GROWyourREGIOn aims to gather ideas and co-create proposals for the next programming period post-2020 as a follow-up to the Smart Regions conference and the forthcoming Communication on Smart Specialisation and as an input for the discussions to the next European Industry Day in 2018.
Pre-registration for this conference is open now! Please visit the event page regularly for updates.
Contact: Grow-your-region-2017 [at] ec.europa.eu