07 Jul 2022
Committee of the Regions welcomes EC's new European Innovation Agenda
The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) welcomes the European Commission's new European Innovation Agenda (EIA) published on 5 July 2022. In particular, the CoR welcomes the fact that the EIA puts an important focus on closing the innovation divide between EU regions and reinforcing the links between regional smart specialisation strategies, Horizon Europe and other funding mechanisms.
The CoR points out that by creating “regional innovation valleys”, the European Commission wants to strengthen and better connect innovation players through Europe, including in regions lagging behind. The aim is to bring together less and more innovative regions with a view to addressing the most burning challenges facing the EU, such as reducing the reliance on fossil fuels, increasing global food security, mastering the digital transformation, improving healthcare and achieving circularity. The EIA provides for this initiative to be launched by the end of 2023 and identify up to 100 regions committed to enhance the coordination and directionality of their R&I investment and policies at regional level. The initiative will build on the 'Partnerships for Regional Innovation' pilot project, which was launched in May 2022 by the CoR and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC). A total of 74 EU territories, including 4 Member States, 63 regions, 7 cities and 6 networks, are part of the Partnerships for Regional Innovation (PRI) pilot initiative that will co-develop and test new tools and governance mechanisms to integrate initiatives and investment in strategic areas and link placed-based opportunities and challenges to EU priorities.
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