International project “LARS - Learning Among Regions on Smart Specialisation” INTERREG Baltic Sea Region Programme 2014-2020
Lithuanian institute of agrarian economics takes part in international project “LARS - Learning Among Regions on Smart Specialisation”, Nr.#R042.
The project attempts to help the public sector in leading smart specialisation processes in their regions and to connect innovation networks across partner regions – Finland, Sweden, Norway, France, Latvia, Poland, Germany and Lithuania. The 11 LARS consortium partners represent mostly authorities with a substantial experience as implementers of EU-regional policies but also research institutions with research and advisory experience in the field.
LARS aims at finding solutions tackling the fragmentation of regional systems of innovation looking for entrepreneurial discoveries within such topics as blue growth, bio and circular economy, advanced production methods and technologies for energy efficiency.
LARS idea lied behind the global value chains and increased sophistication of production, which constitutes a large challenge for regional development efforts. To meet these challenges, learning and up-grading the level of policy intervention start being vitally important. Thus the point of departure for this is regional innovation systems, which are different, but may learn from each other through a process of transnational learning and exploit the complementarities. It is also suggested that collaboration between smart specialized regions could form the base for Macro regional strategies.
The project materializes in 6 steps: 1) Mapping of strategies in order to select the final intervention areas; 2) Triple-helix gap analysis with the purpose of finding deficiencies and also good cases of innovation network functioning; 3) Matching partners in transfer network based on the “good” and “bad” practices; 4) Learning on the transfers, essentially an innovation context analysis; 5) Piloting new activities in the regions with the purpose of improving the innovation networks; 6) Communicating the findings with a view on the wider implications of the project.
LARS is a flagship project of Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme 2014-2020 under priority 1.Innovation 1.2 Smart Specialization. The Programme supports integrated territorial development and cooperation for a more innovative, better accessible and sustainable Baltic Sea region. Total project budget is 1,6 mln Eur.
Project duration: May 2017 – September 2020.
In October 2017 consortium partners had a kick-off meeting in Vaasa (Finland) (https://www.uwasa.fi/en/news/miten_alue_voi_erikoistua_alykkaasti) and milestone activities had already been started in all regions.
Project coordinator in Lithuania dr. Zivile Gedminaite-Raudone
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