4. Building on Romania’s innovation support services
This chapter identifies and assesses the major challenges for Romania’s Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) in delivering innovation support services. It highlights strengths, successes, limitations, and priority areas for future improvement. External challenges, particularly those associated with the region’s innovation ecosystem, are also included. The chapter explores the role of other influential stakeholders in innovation policy, examines relevant case studies from outside Romania and identifies new opportunities that its RDAs could potentially pursue in coming years. Furthermore, it offers insights into broader innovation issues and developments in Romania and how RDAs can better take advantage of regional, national, and international opportunities.
Innovation is an important driver of economic growth and regional development. New ideas, technologies, collaborations and approaches can help improve the productivity of regional workers, help established firms adapt to new international conditions, nurture the growth of new industries and increase employment throughout Romania. In addition to assisting incumbent firms and workers, innovation can also be instrumental in attracting new investment, skilled workers and research organisations.
Although the macroeconomic benefits of innovation are large, adopting new technologies and methods of production takes significant time, commitment and investment. Individual businesses and organisations throughout Romania have often been hesitant or unwilling to explore emerging innovation opportunities in recent years. In order to overcome this hesitation, Romania’s Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) will require region-specific, long-term innovation strategies that can engage regional actors, improve their understanding of the benefits of innovation and provide support services tailored to their unique circumstances. A long-term approach is particularly important because the potential benefits of innovation and innovation support can often require several years to be realised.
The chapter is divided into four sections, each focusing on different areas of RDA capacity and performance. The first examines the innovation strategies pursued by RDAs and identifies several significant capacity gaps. The second explores the most frequently occurring funding and implementation issues, including funding limitations. The third is focused on RDA communications and stakeholder engagement. The fourth summarises new and emerging innovation opportunities and suggests potential ways for RDAs to make the most of them.
Effective innovation support requires an evidence-based, long-term strategy to ensure that RDA resources are targeted towards initiatives that will have the greatest possible impact. Across the Romanian RDAs, innovation strategies are well-intentioned but reactive, with several weaknesses in the strategy design process, resulting in a short-term and predominantly operational stance towards innovation support opportunities. Structural and capacity issues partly explain the inability of RDAs to take a more proactive leadership role in innovation support. In many regions of Romania, the innovation ecosystem is immature, and staff lack the requisite knowledge, skills and data to craft an effective innovation strategy.
Strategy design for regional innovation
Romanian RDAs have embraced the opportunity to operate as Managing Authorities under the European Union’s current (2021-27) programming period, a role that offers significant new opportunities to support and develop regional innovation. Alongside their management of the Regional Programme and related responsibilities for smart specialisation strategies (S3), RDAs are in a strong position to align broader strategic priorities with their regional development plans to help drive regional innovation. However, challenges exist across the RDAs in planning and implementing a coherent innovation strategy.
Strategic co-ordination is limited within many RDA innovation strategies
Due to the relative speed required by RDAs to take on the role of a Managing Authority and the gaps and challenges that are present across their governance arrangements, it is unclear if RDAs have adequately reflected on the value of a strategic framework for innovation that encapsulates the objectives of their Regional Programmes, S3 and their own regional development plans. There is a tendency for RDAs to pursue parallel processes and siloed approaches across these strategies due to separate governance mechanisms and insufficient co-ordination of the organisations and actors who play influential roles in their drafting. This siloed approach has led to the creation of numerous overlapping innovation objectives, which complicates the prioritisation of RDA support services.
In addition to poor internal strategic co-ordination, several RDAs noted a disconnect between national-level innovation priorities and specific, place-based innovation opportunities and challenges prioritised at the regional level. This disconnect is a further barrier to achieving effective strategic co-ordination of innovation support.
To combat these challenges, most Romanian RDAs have developed “innovation consortia” to bring together regional organisations involved in the innovation ecosystem. These consortia differ across the RDAs in their structure, governance, membership, and frequency of meetings. Their aims are, however, broadly similar in that they act as an advisory body to the RDA concerning innovation needs, challenges and opportunities within their regions. Membership can include academics, businesses, chambers of commerce, local authorities, and community organisations. In general, the roles, membership and objectives of innovation consortia are unclear and their ability to streamline and focus RDA innovation strategy has been limited. There is exception, for example, in the North-East, which has developed clear rules for the functioning of its regional innovation consortia. More clearly defined roles and activities of the consortia, with a clear objective to help identify and validate innovation priorities, could greatly assist the RDAs to develop consistent innovation strategies and focus resources on the most pressing needs within their regions.
RDA capacity to develop a coherent innovation strategy is limited
RDAs should periodically undertake a thorough review and reflection on the skills and capacity gaps among the staff responsible for innovation support. Sufficient investment should then be made to properly source and augment the staff skills required for RDAs to adopt a comprehensive regional innovation orientation (OECD, 2023[1]).
As a consequence, RDAs tend to lack a long-term, co-ordinated innovation vision for the future and have – by default – resorted to an operational stance in their approach to regional innovation (OECD, 2023[2]). Without a more strategic and co-ordinated outlook, this stance puts a great deal of pressure on the delivery of innovation support services. In addition, this poorly co-ordinated stance can lead to delays in innovation call applications themselves and the prioritisation of efforts to address this backlog can prevent effective programme planning and delivery.
For the reasons outlined above, together with an underdeveloped culture for monitoring and evaluation, the RDAs tend to have in place limited monitoring and evaluation systems and processes for innovation. Therefore, bottlenecks and challenges to delivering innovation support and services are not generally well-captured or evidenced. This further hinders the RDAs’ ability to adopt a longer-term and more strategic approach to regional innovation planning that is based on the evidence of stakeholder needs or the types of support services that are having the greatest impact.
RDAs must address strategy design challenges and take advantage of wider opportunities
In addition to their responsibility for ensuring the 2021-27 Cohesion Policy Regional Programmes are successfully implemented, including its priority objectives with an innovation dimension, the RDAs are also responsible for the development of regional innovation strategies, plans and processes. Further, they are well-positioned to act as co-ordinators, facilitators and strategic brokers and bring different organisations and stakeholders together to foster a more cohesive approach to regional innovation strategies. This is not easy to establish in a context where significant institutional change has already taken place and there are pressures on the time, resources and capacity of all regional actors within each RDA’s innovation community.
Notwithstanding these difficulties, RDAs should embrace their roles as conveners, mobilise their regional innovation communities and leverage the efforts of regional businesses and other organisations to develop and co-ordinate a coherent innovation strategy. By bringing these actors together – for example, through innovation consortia with clear objectives – improved innovation governance can be established and provide guidance on key challenges, capacity gaps and investment priorities.
RDAs should consider different tools and techniques to bring innovation actors together across the quadruple helix1 and invest in regular discussions that promote exchange and mutual learning across these groups. Regional intermediary stakeholders such as clusters, local authorities and universities can play an important role by representing the views and concerns of the wider innovation communities to which they are connected. It is, therefore, critical to engage these intermediaries. Focus groups, round tables and innovation camps can all be used to deepen this collaborative spirit and help forge a coherent innovation strategy. Regular tracking the progress that is being made through these fora is necessary to understand if a more collaborative approach to innovation is being achieved and whether alternative forms of innovation governance might be more effective.
This type of co-ordinated effort requires significant planning, co-operation and commitment from numerous regional and national actors. Different innovation intermediaries, including clusters, technology transfer offices, chambers of commerce and test centres, operate with very different objectives and within different systems. Aligning the efforts of these actors can be challenging. As well as promoting a new collaboration ethos, this type of joint working might also require a review of regulatory and governance practices. Working together with the Romanian Association of Regional Development Agencies (ROREG) and the national government could also help the RDAs better understand the importance of a clear, well-understood innovation strategy.
Since all RDAs are taking time to adjust to their new roles as Managing Authorities, ROREG could take strategic soundings from each to measure the rate of progress in fulfilling these new responsibilities in each region. This should evidence new roles, recent initiatives, recurring bottlenecks and suggestions for what collective support could potentially be provided. European Commission services could also support such strategic dialogue, perhaps with insights from other member states where similar de-centralised governance for innovation has taken shape.
Innovation camps could be further explored to support improved strategy design
While the entrepreneurial discovery process, an interactive form of stakeholder engagement, has been undertaken in each region to inform S3 design, innovation camps can bring a wider group of innovation actors together, focus on common challenges and create a safe environment to share views and reach common agreement on directions and solutions. The insights generated by these camps, as well as feedback on existing projects and innovation support services, are valuable sources of evidence that can help inform future modifications and improvements in strategy design. Hosted over multiple days, accommodating a diverse group of participants, and professionally facilitated, innovation camps have proven effective in other subnational settings (Box 4.1) and could provide the foundations of a single, coherent, evidence-based regional innovation strategy. RDAs could facilitate a small number of these events, signalling their commitment to harnessing collective innovation efforts and capacity with quadruple helix actors across their respective regions. In particular, an innovation camp could offer a valuable platform for convening regional innovation intermediaries, with the aim of improving alignment across related innovation initiatives.
Innovation camps would have the added benefit of bringing together new and existing actors. The open and inclusive nature of these camps emphasises the importance of considering all perspectives and encourages the generation of innovative responses to established challenges. Depending on the nature of the challenge being addressed, participants such as young people, students, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and citizen representatives could also be invited to participate. Given that many issues within a regional innovation ecosystem are interconnected and interdependent, organising a series of camps to tackle related issues or different aspects of a complex regional challenge could enhance their impact.
At the 2016 Amsterdam Innovation Camp, one group of participants focused on exploring the role of creativity and design in various industries. The purpose was to identify opportunities for co-creating new businesses, products and services while emphasising how design can foster collaboration among a diversity of stakeholders from the public and private sectors, academia and citizens to shape Amsterdam’s future as a city. The camp participants proposed solutions to maintain the entrepreneurial spirit in fast-growing companies and explored ways to transfer this spirit to more established and often more bureaucratic and hierarchical organisations.
Impressed by the ideas, tips and tools generated during the camp, one participant, who was the Dean of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, decided to establish a dedicated unit that would support and nurture the entrepreneurial spirit in both emerging and existing organisations. Another participant, a representative from the city of Amsterdam, led a team that explored the problem, root causes and potential solutions to improve the engagement of residents and entrepreneurs in a specific district of the city. A Romanian county mayor, who also participated, highlighted the usefulness of the camp’s ability to bring stakeholders together to solve a problem and generate solutions, stressing that the concept is easily adaptable to the needs of a specific locality or organisation.
Source: Joint Research Centre (2017[3]), Innovation Camp Methodology Handbook, https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/ecbc234f-fccc-11e7-b8f5-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/format-PDF/source-64631795.
European Union initiatives offer further opportunities to improve innovation strategy design
As the European Union’s shift towards transformative innovation2 takes shape, complemented by the transition to net zero and the pursuit of greater digitalisation, Romania’s regional governance systems will be expected to evolve and adopt these emerging priorities. This is related to a growing realisation that innovation systems, strategies and investments are dependent on improved connections to other policy areas, including skills, transport and infrastructure. At the core of this new European Union (EU) direction is the need to upgrade governance systems to increase alignment of long-term policy objectives at all levels of government and avoid a siloed approach. Rethinking strategy design will be fundamental to moving in this direction, and innovation is a critical element, though not the only one. Therefore, the need for RDAs to upgrade innovation strategy design through improved co-ordination could be considered a vital first step to achieving a more comprehensive approach to addressing Europe-wide policy priorities.
In 2015, the S3 platforms3 were created for regional authorities, RIS3 managers and stakeholders across EU, to facilitate the development of common innovative initiatives aligned with S3 thematic priorities. Subsequently, the Inter-regional Innovative Investment Programme was developed to fund those initiatives (European Commission, n.d.[4]). In 2023, two new initiatives were launched by the European Commission – the S3 Community of Practice and the Regional Innovation Valleys (European Commission, 2023[5]; European Commission, 2023[6]). In addition, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre established a pilot, Partnerships for Regional Innovation (European Commission, 2022[7]), to explore this emerging area by encouraging regions to share experiences of making the shift to transformative innovation based on S3 principles and experiences. Romanian RDAs could consider if and how they might engage with the new initiative and capitalise on the existing platforms and resources to support learning and exchange related to governance systems and how this affects regional innovation strategy design. A regular joint discussion, facilitated by ROREG and including relevant national ministries, could help RDAs stay informed about available resources and assistance and actively engage in various opportunities and initiatives.
The limitations of a weak innovation ecosystem
All RDAs have made significant strides in putting an S3 into place at the regional level. This has been driven by the 2021-27 Regional Programme, which has enabled S3 to focus on the regional innovation ecosystem and the role of the S3 entrepreneurial discovery process in facilitating quadruple helix engagement. In some RDAs, a governance system exists that brings together actors from across the quadruple helix and actively includes them in innovation planning processes.
However, no Romanian regions have shifted their status from “emerging innovators” in the European Union 2023 edition of the Regional Innovation Scoreboard (European Commission, 2023[8]). There are several reasons for this, including lower rates of urbanisation and a higher share of gross domestic product in agriculture and mining in most regions compared to the EU average. At the core of the challenge, in each region, lies a weak innovation ecosystem.
Throughout Romania, there exists significant regional and sub-regional disparities in innovation performance. These disparities can be found when comparing the innovation performance of the Bucharest-Ilfov region with that of the other regions,4 as well as disparities within the regions themselves, where an individual area – usually a highly urbanised one – outperforms the rest of the region. These disparities are well documented (European Commission, 2021[9]) and impact overall innovation performance.
Relatively low levels of innovation performance across each of the RDAs’ quadruple helix communities is a further obstacle that prevents actors from seeking out innovation support. This is due to a perceived lack of relevance of such support for their particular needs and limited capacity to invest the time and effort required to engage effectively with the innovation support services provided by RDAs.
Finally, there is a low demand for innovation support services, particularly among regional businesses. This makes it difficult for RDAs to design and position support in a way that is targeted, attractive and accessible.
Suggestions to improve the innovation ecosystem
The following suggestions could help the RDAs create a new baseline of innovation within their regions and help strengthen the underlying innovation ecosystem. Most critically, a comprehensive evidence base of the specific innovation challenges occurring within each region is required. A number of levels of analysis could support this evidence base, including data detailing the characteristics of quadruple helix actors, such as firm size, number of employees, industry type, locations within each of the sub-regions, previously identified innovation needs and where they have been concentrated (Box 4.2). Further data collection focusing on successful diversification strategies for more traditional industrial sectors, the distribution of regional innovation intermediary support groups, such as business parks, and the location of innovation infrastructure would provide a deeper understanding of the depth of each region’s current innovation ecosystem. RDAs should consider undertaking the following:
Map the innovation ecosystem to better understand its precise makeup and where the opportunities for collaboration might be best targeted. Such an exercise, which should be repeated by RDAs every couple of years to capture recent developments, can also help to highlight the presence of innovation disparities across each region.
Commission independent research to take an inventory of the specific characteristics and needs of different quadruple helix actors and understand needs across different regional geographies. Depending on the needs, the RDA could commission comprehensive research and regularly update specific sectors or industries with rapid development; or the RDA could commission small-scale research targeting sectors, industries or territories on which there is the least available information.
Regularly convene quadruple helix innovation communities to play a more strategic, as well as consultative, role in shifting each region to an ecosystem orientation by co-creating a new framework for collaboration. The framework should be strongly focused on the consortia’s role as a catalyst in addressing weak regional innovation ecosystems and promoting collaboration.
Highlight the links between S3 and the regional innovation community. This could be achieved using improved information sharing and could also help to promote a long-term, strategic mindset towards innovation.
Improve citizen participation. EU regions increasingly include civil society as a core component of their S3 efforts. This has been driven by the need to engage and co-ordinate local actors to progress digitalisation and net-zero objectives.
In addition to these actions, RDAs can also promote the knowledge curator and holder functions of their quadruple helix actors to gather, analyse and respond to weaknesses in the innovation ecosystem. This can be sector-related or technology-driven, as either approach can act as an effective driver of improved design and delivery of innovation support. Further, feedback from industry and employer organisations can help to provide updated intelligence on business capacity and how that could potentially limit the benefit of innovation support.
A brief online survey of quadruple helix actors is a complementary strategy for gathering information on respective regional innovation ecosystems, their needs and challenges. This could include targeted questions for different categories of innovation actors and help guide future discussions between RDAs and regional stakeholders. Examples of survey questions could be arranged by targeted respondents as follows.
From where do you get your ideas for innovation (e.g. clients, competitors, regional universities or international research and development partners)? If in-house staff, from which part of the organisation?
How do you assess the climate for entrepreneurship in your region? Is it easy to pursue innovative business ideas in your region?
Are people, including youth, keen to start up their own business or do they prefer jobs in established enterprises or the public sector? If the entrepreneurial climate is not favourable, what are the main barriers?
Does the research and innovation support offered in your region correspond to your needs? What would be suitable conditions for you to decide to invest more in research and innovation?
With which enterprises or research institutes in your region do you co-operate and in which field?
Do you get a part of your research budget from private investors?
How much mobility is there between public scientific research and the private sector?
Do you train students and graduates to become entrepreneurs?
Do you know who the main research and innovation actors are in your region? What are their fields of competency?
What are the main needs of innovative firms in your region to grow and invest?
Where does the funding for research and development and innovation go? Which type is more effective at improving the innovation ecosystem?
What types of innovation would you like to see in the future?
What is your vision for innovation-driven transformations in your region?
Eastern Ontario’s Leadership Council for Economic Development commissioned researchers from Toronto Metropolitan University to study and map the region’s innovation ecosystem. This study analysed Eastern Ontario’s innovation ecosystem to better understand how local innovation support services contribute to creating new businesses and investments and to retaining and expanding existing firms.
The methodology used to carry out this mapping was divided into six phases:
1. Developing guiding research questions to guide the mapping, such as:
What are the current economic profile and trends of the region and what is the state of business and entrepreneurial activity?
How can we assess the framework conditions of the region (infrastructure, financing, etc.)?
Who are Eastern Ontario’s key stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem?
Are innovation resources co-ordinated and leveraged across the region?
What are the key links to other regional, national and international ecosystems?
How well do companies in the region use technology to achieve their organisational goals?
2. Analysing available data from Statistics Canada: analysis of economic development data from local authorities to assess entrepreneurial activity levels and trends (new and established businesses), jobs and other sources.
3. Developing an inventory of key players and intermediaries in the ecosystem.
4. Assessing of innovation models and methods: mapping of policies, infrastructure, capital and talent in the region.
5. Consulting with key stakeholders: understanding the components of the system and their assessment of current programmes and needs.
6. Drafting a final report on the innovation ecosystem in the region.
Source: Cuicker, W., et al. (2016[10]), Mapping the Innovation Ecosystem in Eastern Ontario: Towards an Inclusive Canadian Innovation Strategy, https://www.torontomu.ca/content/dam/diversity/reports/mappingtheinnovationecosystem_report.pdf.
International expertise could support a better understanding of regional innovation ecosystems
EU, OECD and academic research is increasingly placing more emphasis on the need for regions to adopt a stronger place-based focus to policy making. With this comes increasing interest in territorial impact assessments to better understand the potential impact of policies and interventions at different geographical levels and spaces. This type of analysis could support Romanian regions with long-term challenges related to innovation disparities by shining a light on policies and actions that have had uneven impacts. For example, the European Commission has set up a new S3 resource for EU regions: the S3 Community of Practice. This aims to further support regions to address S3 enabling conditions. Continuous engagement with these kinds of initiatives could support RDAs to strengthen their innovation ecosystems.
Knowledge and understanding of innovation
Romanian RDAs have a long history of supporting regional innovation, not least through drafting regional development plans. There is now a need to upgrade capacity across RDAs to adopt a more strategic orientation towards planning for innovation support and services as part of the regional development planning process. This requires a shift from a more ad hoc approach to innovation planning to one that adopts a more holistic perspective, taking a long-term view of how to shift regional innovation performance through improved alignment with objectives within the regional development plan as well as across strategies, assets and stakeholders.
A deeper technical knowledge of and a stronger application of transversal skills to innovation could help the RDAs more successfully identify and articulate where there are gaps in the skills and capacity of staff. Particular attention should be paid to building technical knowledge about the role and importance of a long-term innovation orientation and softer knowledge, or transversal skills that can be applied to promoting and encouraging greater innovation collaboration across the whole innovation ecosystem.
The knowledge gaps about innovation present risks to the overall delivery and effectiveness of innovation programming in the regions. For example, in many cases, insufficient review of how the innovation support services designed by the RDAs meet the demands of the region, the specific issues that create bottlenecks in delivering support, understanding the nature of uptake of services and assessing the impact of innovation support are all affecting RDA capacity to deliver high-quality, sequenced and demand-led support across their regions. This long-term planning deficit also affects the cohesiveness of the innovation support system. Limited cohesiveness can create duplication of effort, gaps in areas where there is high demand for specific support and stakeholders who are not reached by the innovation programming due to limited targeting of innovation support at sub-regional levels.
Investment is needed to boost knowledge and expertise
There is a need for RDAs to provide support for staff to improve knowledge, awareness and capacity to enable the adoption of a more strategic approach to innovation support. This will require a tailored programme of training, development and learning that promotes the value of strategic planning for innovation.
Related to this, RDA knowledge about the strategic value of S3 requires significant internal resourcing. For example, S3 could be positioned as a catalyst to help deliver regional development plan goals, not least in addressing the challenges of upgrading regional economic infrastructure and promoting diversification opportunities across industry sectors. This is particularly relevant to more traditional and vulnerable sectors such as agriculture and hospitality services. There is also unexplored potential across some of the RDAs in how a long-term planning approach to innovation can be leveraged through investment in energy, transport and digital infrastructure.
The following initiatives could help the RDAs to improve knowledge and boost strategic planning for innovation across their respective regions:
Actively align regional S3 with evolving EU priorities to better understand recent trends and developments in innovation. This alignment could focus on the European Union’s New European Innovation Agenda (European Commission, 2023[11]). This could stimulate new innovation collaboration opportunities while connecting regions to new support measures for S3, such as the Partnerships for Regional Innovation and the new S3 Community of Practice, specifically targeted to the needs of less developed regions.
Map the areas of expertise required to improve RDA capacity for regional innovation support. By taking stock of existing gaps in skills and knowledge, RDAs can identify priority regional innovation planning tasks and responsibilities, develop an understanding of the breadth of experience of RDA staff responsible for regional innovation planning and define the challenges they face. This mapping can be done, for instance, through questionnaires, workshops and interviews with staff working on regional innovation.
Work with regional businesses to develop a comprehensive network with knowledge of innovation needs and challenges. The purpose of this could be oriented towards regional collaboration to build planning and strategic competencies for innovation support. Connecting this to the S3 could also help strengthen connections across the quadruple helix and encourage interactions and collaboration at the innovation planning stage.
Set up learning groups with wider quadruple helix actors (including local authorities) to explore and exchange learning and insights into the types of actions, resources and skills that are needed throughout the region, as well as the value that this can generate. Taking these conversations to stakeholders outside of the RDA can also help develop a stronger collaborative ethos at different levels of government and help avoid duplication of innovation support.
Knowledge of the region can support better targeting of innovation support
RDAs should consider an internal reflection exercise allowing them to explore the characteristics of the wider regional economy and the potential implications for innovation support services. This understanding can then guide how and with whom the RDA can start to build its approach to improved regional innovation planning.
Furthermore, this baseline will help RDAs identify gaps in innovation support by reviewing the distance between the current offering and how RDAs would like to position themselves in their regions. Programmes to address these gaps could be designed by the RDAs, with ROREG supporting the co-ordination of efforts.
RDAs should also consider how best to adopt a long-term approach to continuous investment in staff knowledge and awareness. With significant change at the EU level concerning an upgraded innovation policy and the need to incorporate the transition to net zero, RDAs and other innovation-focused public services need to ensure that their policies and support functions are well aligned to this changing landscape.
The limitations of current human resources and capacity
Since becoming Managing Authorities, it has not been possible for RDAs to undertake a comprehensive analytical exercise to examine how new roles and associated tasks can be delivered. This includes a lack of comprehensive evidence concerning staffing gaps or where existing staff lack the skills and experience to deliver the full range of tasks that they are now in charge of. The prior experience of RDAs as Intermediate Bodies for Regional Programmes has perpetuated a default operational stance, which appears to be influencing the innovation support approach of many as Managing Authorities. What is required is a more strategic approach to innovation support.
Gaps in resources, capacity and skills mean that the RDAs cannot dedicate the necessary time and resources to planning, communicating, assessing, delivering and upgrading a full suite of innovation support services. In turn, this creates blockages in the delivery of support services. It also prevents a comprehensive understanding of whether those provided are fully in line with needs and demand across their innovation communities. A continuous assessment approach is a prerequisite to upgrading and refining support and to looking beyond the immediate timeframe of delivering innovation support services.
There is a further risk that long-term innovation investment needs and opportunities are insufficiently understood and defined. This creates an opportunity cost to cultivating an attractive innovation investment environment that can leverage funding from multiple sources and better connect innovation actors within and beyond each region.
Assessment of capacity gaps is an important first step
An internal review exercise is needed to review and evidence the gaps in innovation capacity in each RDA, focusing on articulating the risks and disadvantages of absent skills. There are a number of ways to go about this, including the procurement of external human resources expertise and the utilisation of knowledge and support from individual regional innovation communities. It is important to emphasise that an exercise like this is intended to support and invest in staffing needs, not to criticise or illustrate shortcomings at a personal level. RDAs should explore the viability of the following options:
Undertake a first-stage, internal review of the strengths and challenges facing RDA innovation support and services. This review could act as a precursor to a formal review and would ensure that the views of RDA staff are sufficiently catalogued. As a first step, the RDA management could organise and conduct frank exchanges and structured interviews. Both individual and collective discussions across relevant staff should be considered. Human resources and innovation specialists should support this process. Key questions and themes could focus on how supply meets demand for innovation support in terms of timing, capacity, targeting knowledge and signposting. Importantly, the process of drawing up draft options and solutions should be undertaken with RDA staff. This exercise requires significant sensitivity, separating the personal skills and experience of employees from their functional roles.
Build a framework for an RDA innovation skill and capacity-building investment programme. This will require an in-depth review of both the tasks, skills and capacity of staff, as well as the requirements of the role as set out in the S3, Regional Programmes and regional development plans. To ensure objectivity, external feedback should be sought to assist the core RDA innovation team in identifying missing skills and capacity for innovation support and services.
Explore system-wide human resource solutions to delivering on the region’s innovation needs and opportunities. This exercise would require the buy-in and long-term commitment of the region’s wider innovation support system since a great deal of the expertise for innovation already exists throughout Romania. It could involve, for example, exchange programmes, mentoring and support for the mobility of RDA staff to work intensively with other actors across the innovation ecosystem. For more specialised roles where resources cannot be sourced from within the RDA, external recruitment may be warranted.
Knowledge gaps can undermine RDA authority and effectiveness
The review of innovation-related staff and capacity could also be used to address knowledge gaps among staff responsible for S3. An example of how such a review can lead to improved innovation outcomes comes from the Veneto region in Italy (Box 4.3), which successfully strengthened its S3 team and processes following an assessment of knowledge gaps.
Regions wishing to promote innovation should regularly assess the knowledge gaps of their regional public administration and innovation and development agency staff dealing with innovation stakeholders. An example of this practice can be observed in the Veneto region, which undertook a review of its S3 for 2021-27. The process started with a contextual analysis carried out by the region’s four universities in collaboration with a team from Veneto Innovazione, an internal consultancy unit within the regional public administration.
The analysis’ key focus was identifying potential knowledge gaps in supporting regional innovation actors within the regional team co-ordinating the S3. A comparative study was carried out to identify good practices, focusing on regions with industrial ecosystems and territorial characteristics similar to those of Veneto.
The results of the assessment led to the strengthening of the Veneto S3 co-ordination team compared to the previous programming period. The team now consists of three groups: one focusing on monitoring and evaluation, another on the entrepreneurial discovery process and the third on communication. The introduction of a dedicated communication group was in response to the analysis undertaken that pointed to a gap in the visibility of the strategy and its opportunities.
Source: European Committee of the Regions (2023[12]), “The Future of Regional Smart Specialisation Strategies: Sustainable, Inclusive and Resilient”, European Union, Commission for Social Policy, Education, Employment, Research and Culture, https://doi.org/10.2863/89427.
Data, monitoring and evaluation
RDAs generally report challenges in accessing sufficiently in-depth data to clearly understand regional needs and challenges. In addition, there was a recognition that improved access to more sophisticated data tools could offer new insights into regional performance, enabling tailored innovation support services. There is also a tendency for innovation data to be fragmented across regions. For example, the West RDA reported that regional and local level data are not available for some environmental, energy efficiency, research and other innovation metrics, since national authorities do not systematically collect them. This, therefore, necessitates numerous data requests to counties and local authorities and impedes the generation of a coherent, connected or holistic overview of either what this data reveal or how they might be used to fine-tune innovation support within a region.
While the above issues relate to data shortfalls, they are also part of a more deeply embedded challenge relating to relatively weak monitoring and evaluation systems overall and a tendency for the monitoring and evaluation culture of RDAs to be underdeveloped. Together, these shortfalls limit the extent to which innovation policies are truly evidence-based, given the many ambiguities concerning the specific details of innovation strengths and challenges that the regions are facing. In turn, this makes it more difficult to ensure that the innovation support services RDAs are designing meet the needs of the regional innovation ecosystem. It can also affect long-term forecasting of innovation investment needs. For example, if requests for and satisfaction with, a particular form of support are monitored carefully and are decreasing over time, it can be inferred that certain challenges have become less of an issue for regional actors and the RDA will need to recalibrate its offering to respond to emerging innovation needs and challenges.
Many RDAs lack experience in working with monitoring and evaluation systems. As Managing Authorities, there is a requirement to better capture innovation-related performance data and evidence, including tracking the delivery and impact of the Regional Programme and regional S3. However, because the prevalent culture has been to undervalue the role of monitoring and evaluation, there is a risk that many RDAs will be insufficiently informed about their innovation needs and performance. The gap noted previously in this report concerning a general absence across RDAs in adopting a strategic approach to innovation planning is also connected to the gaps in monitoring and evaluation. Therefore, underperforming monitoring and evaluation systems can widely affect the quality and relevance of innovation support services.
Data are key for effective monitoring and evaluation
There are multiple benefits that RDAs can realise from improved monitoring and evaluation procedures and systems. This can contribute to improved monitoring of S3, by identifying issues that might require new responses. Investing in monitoring and evaluation targeting innovation can also help generate an improved statistical base of regional innovation priorities and successes that can help the RDAs create a compelling narrative of their innovation efforts for domestic audiences and wider EU stakeholders. In addition, an improved evidence base could provide a stronger basis from which to prioritise services and support.
RDAs could consider the following actions to help them improve the availability of innovation-related data and to re-position their innovation monitoring and evaluation systems:
Align regional innovation data collection to provide a greater depth of evidence about needs and performance. By bringing together different actors and owners of innovation data within each region a first-stage repository of innovation-related data – sources, timelines for collection and current uses – could be designed and structured to create a database. For this exercise, terms of reference could be drawn up to review the co-ordination of innovation-related data and options for managing this process in the future.
Request support from ROREG to undertake a survey with RDA staff into data challenges: this would help to identify where bottlenecks exist and where there are patterns and differences across the RDAs. Furthermore, the results of the survey could encourage dialogue across the RDAs in sharing experiences in sourcing data to support the upgrading of innovation support services and in shifting to a more granular approach to understanding innovation needs and performance across each region. Advice and support from the Romania National Institute of Statistics could also be explored. An exercise like this could also help establish where gaps in knowledge and capacity exist and how these might be addressed by outsourcing innovation-related data collation.
Explore capacity and interest across respective regional innovation ecosystems for the establishment of an innovation monitoring and evaluation committee. This would strengthen oversight of monitoring and evaluation across these areas, drawing on the collective skills and capacity of each RDA’s innovation ecosystem. In turn, this could generate a more positive monitoring and evaluation culture, with the RDAs facilitating capacity-building support across ecosystem actors and encouraging more experimentation in how data are collected and analysed.
Innovation data can support regional development objectives
As Romania’s regions work towards greater digitalisation, both through public sector and private sector investments, valuable insights may be drawn from open data initiatives taking place across the European Union. These initiatives illustrate the value that open data can have in supporting regional development and innovation. While the setup of open data repositories is a technical and time-intensive operation, it can provide long-term benefits by engaging regional stakeholders in the process of using innovation-driven data to support their own innovation goals. Trentino, Italy, provides a good case study of the costs and benefits of establishing a regional innovation-driven, open data platform (Box 4.4).
Italy’s Trentino region has made a strategic investment in innovation data as part of its broader efforts to optimise the performance of its innovation ecosystem. This long-term direction acknowledges the importance of leveraging data-driven approaches to drive innovation and enhance overall outcomes.
To support this initiative, the following resources were required:
These types of projects are cost-effective because they capitalise on existing competencies and technologies that have been developed across Europe. Leveraging these resources allows for efficient implementation and minimises expenses. However, political commitment is a critical resource needed to ensure the success of these endeavours.
The related Dati.trentino project contains 6 000 datasets linked to the Italian open data catalogue. This project involves not only the regional administration but also numerous municipalities that automatically publish open data through their websites. More than 51 applications and services utilise the data provided by the initiative, demonstrating their wide impact and value in enabling innovative solutions and services.
Source: Interreg (2018[13]), Open Data Trentino Increasing Data Culture in the Innovation Ecosystem for a Data Driven Economy, https://www.interregeurope.eu/good-practices/open-data-trentino-increasing-data-culture-in-the-innovation-ecosystem-for-a-data-driven-economy.
Open data should remain a long-term objective for RDAs
The Romanian government could potentially partner with the RDAs to design an initiative supporting regions in delivering on digital transition goals, based on improved access to and uptake of data and building new monitoring and evaluation approaches for innovation. The long-term objective of this initiative could be to establish an open data platform across each RDA. This could be supported by the new Technical Support Instrument of the European Commission, implemented by the Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support (DG REFORM)5.
An improved approach to strategy, planning and performance management by Romania’s RDAs is evidently required to harness the constructive role of innovation in regional development. Most critically, RDAs should prioritise the formulation of an evidence-based, long-term strategy to ensure that resources are targeted towards innovation support that will have the greatest possible impact. Such a strategy will also assist the necessary transition from the current operational stance that is undermining RDA effectiveness. Further improvements in staff capacity, data collection, monitoring, evaluation and consultation with regional innovation ecosystem actors will enable the RDAs to better understand emerging trends and ensure that their innovation support strategies remain relevant and well-targeted over time.
In addition to the challenges posed by strategies and planning, the actual implementation of innovation support services by RDAs has scope for improvement. The most important change required is a renewed focus on beneficiaries – businesses and other innovation actors in the regions – who will require better guidance and clearer information if they are to make use of RDA innovation support services. Reform of RDA call management processes and better recognition of beneficiary limitations would also greatly improve uptake and impact. Widening the number and scope of funding and financing options for innovation within Romanian regions, which are currently limited to EU funding or private sector loans, would greatly assist potential beneficiaries.
RDA call management and beneficiary support
RDA innovation funding systems and innovation funding in Romania more broadly are somewhat underdeveloped. Access to finance, such as loans for start-ups and scale-ups, is limited by the reluctance of regional investors and lenders to support innovation projects. This leads innovation actors to rely heavily on funding from national and EU sources, but applications are often complex and not user-friendly (OECD, 2023[1]). Communications and diffusion processes for alerting beneficiaries to both innovation calls and wider support services available through the RDAs often lack clarity about how to engage and have a level of ambiguity about the nature of the specific funding and financing opportunities. There is also limited targeting of innovation support services towards different types of beneficiaries, for example, business size or industry. The result is a level of uncertainty for beneficiaries in how innovation support systems operate. Consequently, innovation beneficiaries are sometimes reluctant to pursue innovation funding support. This seems to be especially the case for regional businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
There is a lack of connectivity between RDA high-level innovation goals and the funding to achieve these. For example, while all RDAs are keen to support the deepening of their regional innovation ecosystems, it is not clear that calls and services are sufficiently oriented towards fostering innovation collaboration. Some RDAs lack the expertise, capacity and know-how to design and upgrade innovation support in this direction. This can lead to a mismatch between the funding priorities identified through innovation calls and the actual needs of industries, communities or research organisations. Further, these capacity challenges are holding back RDAs in delivering and achieving the high-level goals they have set for their innovation strategies.
A further issue is weaknesses in the process of innovation funding calls, including gaps in how some RDAs oversee the implementation and financial management of calls. In some cases, the process is deemed to be cumbersome, not systematic and characterised by long time lags that make engagement difficult and unattractive. In turn, this can affect the quality of funding applications, where potential beneficiaries do not fully understand the process due to unclear guidelines. In addition, there are delays – sometimes significant – in assessing innovation applications. This creates bottlenecks in the call system and can generate uncertainty for beneficiaries. In some RDAs, there are low levels of applications for innovation calls and also low success rates in securing the requested support.
Limited engagement with technology transfer support is a further problem. In some RDAs, these services are not optimised due to low engagement from potential beneficiaries. A possible explanation for this low level of engagement is that RDA services are too heavily geared towards high-technology services despite stronger demand for less sophisticated support. A broader suite of innovation support services, which recognises the different types of innovation, the low levels of technological exposure of many Romanian businesses and the predominant industries of each individual region, would help to rebalance RDA support and boost its impact.
The relative immaturity of regional innovation project proposals is a further barrier limiting the uptake of RDA support. Early engagement at the concept stage and the incorporation of RDA feedback could help develop more advanced and higher-quality projects that can in turn benefit from specialised RDA support. This early engagement would also help to build capacity within innovation actors, a common understanding of key terms and concepts and help develop a deeper regional network of potential partners and collaborators.
Regional businesses are unable to utilise RDA support services
Three types of barriers can impede an RDA’s ability to generate greater demand for its innovation funding and support services. The first is content-related. It corresponds to flaws in call design, such as complex content, complicated application procedures and unclear guidelines. The second is capacity-related barriers, which can include a mismatch between call aims and the real or perceived relevance to beneficiaries, as well as weaknesses in beneficiary capacity to complete applications or deliver projects. The final type of barrier is process-related, for example a lack of clarity or misunderstandings regarding the steps in a call application process, a lack of guidance or unrealistic timeframes for applications.
Undertaking a review of the nature and relevance of the barriers described above could give RDAs insight into the specific challenges surrounding the uptake of innovation funds. While these challenges require different solutions, some of them are related. It is, therefore important to review them in a comprehensive way. This could be accomplished through a working group set up specifically for this task or by having an existing working group linked to innovation undertake it. Given that it may place an additional strain on resources, the working group should be convened for a limited period of time to complete its tasks. RDAs may decide to work with external support to help the working group retain focus and ensure objectivity in the process.
A potential strategy that RDAs could immediately explore to overcome barriers and boost funding for regional innovation projects is to map sources of funding for innovation at the local, national and EU levels. This would reduce the complexity for beneficiaries about the different types of funding currently available. It entails extensive activity but if the RDAs work together on this exercise, they could benefit from access to a more comprehensive evidence base containing all known EU and national funding sources. After creating an overview of the various funding sources, RDAs could proactively communicate and present options to beneficiaries, who would then be better able to choose and apply options that match their needs. Major funding programmes could be displayed on dedicated RDA platforms whose design should be intuitive, searchable and equipped with filters and sorting options to allow beneficiaries to find relevant funding options for innovation based on their specific needs and challenges. This exercise could also be considered a precursor to a more extensive review of exploring the weaknesses and gaps of regional innovation financing and investment environments since it will have helped to identify the baseline of innovation support and associated funding channels.
A complementary effort to simplify the process for stakeholders to apply for and effectively spend innovation funding could also be pursued by RDAs. This could include improvements in the conditions for beneficiaries to access innovation funding by reducing the complexity of initial enquiries, with more comprehensive paperwork only requested after the beneficiary’s support needs and chance of success are more fully understood. RDAs could also explore new options to speed up the application approval process, such as publishing online guidance that is clear and easy to follow (Box 4.5). Simplifying administrative processes, for example by transitioning all RDA operations into a paperless form, will also be necessary. Easy-to-use processes would also reduce the burden on RDA innovation support staff due to fewer problems with the call process requiring their attention and resolution.
SMEs often face obstacles when applying for funding, such as complex application documents and lengthy assessment procedures, leading some companies to hire expensive consulting firms. Only a few companies have the necessary experience and resources to independently navigate the application process. In the case of the Podlaska Fundacja Rozwoju Regionalnego (PFRR), the organisation was selected as a grant operator by the Marshal’s Office of Podlaskie Voivodship, which serves as the Managing Authority of the Regional Programme. The PFRR’s project Grants for Research and Innovation aimed to stimulate the demand for innovation and support research and development activities crucial for developing new or significantly improved products, services or production technologies.
The key feature of this practice was the simplified procedure introduced by PFRR, which included a concise and straightforward application form of just five pages, expedited verification processes, and reduced documentation requirements. This streamlined approach enabled SMEs to better engage with the grant process. By June 6, 2018, over 250 applications had been submitted, and 127 projects were qualified to receive grants for implementing their innovative ideas. As a result, these companies achieved their business goals, such as increased sales, profitability, and employment, contributing to the enhanced competitiveness of SMEs in the Podlaskie region.
Source: Interreg (2018), Grants for research and innovation, https://www.interregeurope.eu/good-practices/grants-for-research-and-innovation.
Beneficiary capacity
Beneficiary capacity to engage effectively with innovation support (including calls and advice services) was reported to be an issue by five RDAs: Centre, North-East, South-East, South-West Oltenia and West. This is especially the case with the private sector. In many cases, businesses are far removed from accessing innovation support because of a lack of knowledge about services that are available, geographical distance in accessing support and a perceived lack of relevance of the support on offer. On the other hand, there are also challenges for some businesses who, having accessed innovation support, lack the necessary competencies and capacity to absorb the related benefits. For example, some beneficiaries lack the necessary network of innovation actors to find suitable partners and collaborators.
Furthermore, there is limited stakeholder knowledge of the value of strategic innovation and a persistent view that financing tangible support (such as equipment) to address immediate needs is more important than considering the long-term value of more intangible support (such as investing in digital tools). There remains quite limited understanding among stakeholders and beneficiaries of the need to shift from tangible to intangible assets as an enabler of improved performance.
The themes above affect the ability of beneficiaries to fully engage with and leverage the opportunities offered through innovation calls and wider support. Beneficiary capacity to benefit from innovation support is often hindered by limited knowledge about the value of innovation, a lack of technical expertise, insufficient access to funding and a lack of experience in project management. Therefore, even if calls and support are well designed and relevant, beneficiaries may struggle with implementation and maximising full value.
Beneficiaries need greater support to utilise innovation support
The following ideas and suggestions could help the RDAs improve beneficiary capacity while supporting stakeholders to take a more active role in expressing the challenges they face. Due to the low levels of innovation currently occurring throughout Romania, as evidenced by its ranking (last place) in the European Union on the 2023 European Innovation Scoreboard, this will require significant planning, investment and outreach from the RDAs.
Build the demand-side evidence base of innovation needs and related perceptions of value. There is a need to consult with quadruple helix actors to ensure their voices have been heard; this can be done face-to-face and online, using surveys, roundtable discussions and focus groups. Reaching stakeholders from all geographies across the RDAs is an important consideration and will ensure that perspectives and unique problems from across the whole territory of each region are properly understood. Gathering this evidence and then assessing it to identify key patterns and priorities will help to review whether the current innovation support system meets existing needs. The feedback review should also help establish an improved understanding of innovation issues that fall outside of the RDA remit (e.g. legal and regulatory matters). By sharing these issues across the RDAs, common issues and patterns of challenges can emerge. In turn, these can be taken up with both ROREG and the national government, especially where there is strong evidence of national innovation bottlenecks.
Develop and implement a support process to simplify project application and funding processes. Based on the evidence gathered from stakeholder consultation, RDAs can then take steps to help upgrade their innovation application and funding processes. Final outputs could be in the form of a webpage or guidance document. Some examples of these activities are:
Increase the time between the launch of a call and the deadline for project submission.
Extend the number of activities that can be funded by simplified cost options.
Increase the percentage of funding to be transferred to the beneficiary upon project signature.
Organise periodic meetings with other RDAs, through ROREG, to share experiences.
Offer potential and actual beneficiaries tailored support related to technical expertise and project management. Technical expertise refers to the types of innovation projects that beneficiaries can apply for but for which they lack the knowledge or capacity to engage. An example of this is in the area of collaboration, where businesses are required to work together on innovation projects. Currently, there is a lack of knowledge among businesses with respect to how to do this or the benefits it can generate. Therefore, awareness-raising and promotional activities are necessary to help build this knowledge, such as videos and case studies from other EU regions (Box 4.6). Beneficiaries in all regions also require training sessions on fundamental project management skills in order to promote confidence, capacity and compliance with the innovation project conditions.
Upgrade the role and collective importance of innovation intermediaries. Because intermediaries, such as clusters, science parks, local authorities and universities, can help connect RDAs with potential beneficiaries, they serve an important outreach function. Together with their regional innovation intermediaries, RDAs could explore how to further develop their role as brokers and facilitators, offering more regular support that aligns with the needs of both innovation intermediaries and funding beneficiaries.
Several national and regional governments have experience using digital business diagnostic tools to build interest and stimulate demand for innovation support among SMEs (OECD, 2018[14]). More sophisticated tools of this nature can also provide services that allow SMEs to compare their performance in sales, employment and profitability. This type of analysis could help to stimulate demand for capacity building to improve SME collaboration (within and beyond individual sectors) and could, therefore, also support wider RDA ambitions to deepen regional innovation ecosystems.
FUTURESME Capability Diagnostic Model. This online tool was developed with financing from the European Union for use by SMEs. The SME provides information about the company and responds to questions around several indicators (e.g. strategy, performance management, etc.). An output report is automatically generated, highlighting the SME’s priority to improve business performance and competitiveness (European Commission, 2011[15]).
COTEC Portugal Innovation Scoring System. This scoring system provides an online self-assessment across five areas related to innovation management. The system automatically creates a feedback report, allowing comparison with average and top performers already using the tool. The system also makes it possible to identify, among all available investment options, those with the greatest potential for creating economic value in line with strategic objectives (Advantage, 2023[16]).
Singapore Smart Industry Readiness Index (Singapore Economic Development Board) (EDB Singapore, 2020[17]). This self-assessment tool scores SMEs against eight criteria and across three dimensions (process, technology, organisation). The resulting performance profile helps SMEs prioritise and implement actions to support their smart industry readiness.
e-Estonia (Enterprise Estonia). e-Estonia offers a digital tool that helps SMEs to identify their level of competitiveness using seven indicators (competitiveness; customers and markets; sales and marketing; products and prices; distribution channels; product development, production, and logistics; and resources and know-how). The tool highlights areas for improvement for the SMEs who have taken the diagnostic and points to further innovation support offered through EU and national funds.
Source: OECD (2018[14]), Leveraging Business Development Services for SME Productivity Growth, https://www.oecd.org/industry/smes/Final%20Draft%20Report_V11.pdf; European Commission (2011[15]), Sustainable Business Model for SMEs, https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/86400-sustainable-business-model-for-smes; Advantage (2023[16]), Inovação, https://advantage.cotec.pt/inovacao; EDB Singapore (2020[17]), The Smart Industry Readiness Index, https://www.edb.gov.sg/en/about-edb/media-releases-publications/advanced-manufacturing-release.html.
Funding limitations
Despite the RDAs now overseeing and managing the funding for the Regional Programme, there are ongoing challenges related to accessing existing sources of funding and the availability of more investment-oriented financial instruments. Throughout 2021-27, approximately EUR 3.1 billion from the 8 Regional Programmes funded by the European Union will be allocated to regional innovation projects under the Smart Europe objective to support regional innovation projects. However, RDAs do not have control of this funding source and can only advise and assist regional organisations and businesses that are interested in applying to support their own innovation investments. A further EUR 2.7 billion has also been planned for allocation towards Smart Europe at the national level, a share of which could potentially help to fund projects led by regional innovation actors.
Although RDAs do not have their own budgets to fund and support innovation projects, some RDAs reported challenges with managing and supporting applications for innovation funds. For example, funding made available through the Regional Programme to deliver innovation support services was often considered to be too limited and not well-aligned to business needs, especially start-ups. Therefore, while prioritisation is needed, this is difficult to undertake in the absence of reliable and up-to-date evidence of innovation needs across different stakeholder groups. In some RDAs, existing Regional Programme funding has been underutilised, signalling a lack of awareness about its availability and limited capacity amongst regional innovation actors to take advantage of the support.
Furthermore, some RDAs have rigidities within their organisational structure that pose challenges to fostering a vibrant investment culture. For example, RDAs have no borrowing capacity. Some of these constraints are related to regulatory barriers and complex bureaucracy that prevent the development of an environment that is conducive to innovation investment. The regions also tend to lack robust non-EU financial mechanisms (Zavarská et al., 2023[18]), such as venture capital funds or angel investor networks, that can provide the necessary financial support and mentorship to innovative ventures (see Box 4.8). The 2023 European Innovation Scoreboard has also shown that venture capital expenditure, while never very high in Romania, has slipped further in 2023 (European Commission, 2023[8]). In the absence of vibrant innovation investment environments, access to funding and finance for beneficiaries – especially businesses – can be difficult to secure.
The West RDA is considering diversifying its innovation funding offer through the creation of a regional venture capital fund. This is unique at the regional level in Romania and rare at the national level (Chirileasa, 2022[19]). This fund would invest in companies located in the region and could benefit small, innovative companies by providing access to funding. Not to understate the significant effort required to explore, design and implement such a fund, this is a strategy that the other RDAs could also explore. Long-term investment will be needed to ensure its success and credibility, the start-up costs will be high and the investment strategy will require careful consideration and planning. A prerequisite for success would be to ensure sufficient and stable demand for such investment support from the business sector. To boost this, the West RDA could consider adopting the strategy employed by some private venture capital firms that provide free, non-financial support such as consultancy services, financial advice, marketing strategy and training (European Commission, 2011[20]).
Source: Chirileasa, A. (2022[19]), “EC disburses funds under 2021-2027 MFF to West regional development agency in Romania”, Romania-Insider.com; European Commission (2011[20]), Commission Proposal on Venture Capital for Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), European Commission.
The INNOVA-FI policy booklet on financial instruments
The Interreg Europe INNOVA-FI project provides a framework for identifying key public and private sources of finance and funding for innovation investment. It focuses on improving the structure and implementation of financial instruments to meet the financial needs of innovative enterprises engaged in research, technological development and innovation at all stages of growth. By understanding the dynamics of public funding in different regions, the project partners aim to refine the innovation finance landscape and turn existing challenges into sustainable growth opportunities.
The project consortium is addressing several key challenges, including creating financial instruments that cater to different business stages, moving away from a deep-rooted grant culture, aligning financial instruments more effectively with other support mechanisms and developing cross-border instruments.
In addition to these efforts, INNOVA-FI has published a policy booklet with a wide range of financial instrument applications and setups from different partner regions to complement its efforts.
The Paris Region Venture Fund
Created by the council of the Île-de-France region in 2011, the Paris Region Venture Fund is an investment fund dedicated to young, innovative companies. The EU Cohesion Policy European Regional Development Fund and the region each provided 50% of the total funds. By 2021, over 40 investments had been made.
The Paris Region Venture Fund supports growth strategies with very high potential to create sustainable jobs in young, innovative companies in the start-up phase. Specifically, it targets companies working on innovation with high technological stakes and that have a turnover of less than EUR 1 million. Companies span a wide range of sectors: digital, mobility, artificial intelligence, health, sustainable and smart cities and aeronautics, among others. Some of the criteria in selecting its investments include the quality of the teams, the company’s growth prospects and its potential contribution to the development of Île-de-France, i.e. local anchoring, participation in the economic dynamism of the region, etc. The fund is managed by Karista, a venture capital firm specialising in health and digital technology investment.
The companies that receive funding will automatically become members of the Paris Region Business Club. This network has more than 3 000 members and offers business opportunities, exclusive contacts, opportunities for networking and experience sharing, and visibility to support the company’s growth.
Source: Interreg (2023[21]), Financial Instruments for Innovation, https://projects2014-2020.interregeurope.eu/innova-fi/ (accessed on 03 November 2023); Paris Region Venture Fund (n.d.[22]), Homepage, http://prvf.fr/ (accessed on 03 November 2023); Région Ile de France (n.d.[23]), Paris Region Venture Fund, https://www.iledefrance.fr/paris-region-venture-fund (accessed on 03 November 2023); Karista (2021[24]), “Ten years of success for the Paris Region Venture Fund”, www.karista.vc/stories/ten-years-of-success-for-the-paris-region-venture-fund (accessed on 03 November 2023).
Unsophisticated communications and ineffective stakeholder engagement have undermined the efficacy of innovation support services provided by RDAs. The largest consequence of these failures is the inability of RDAs to connect with potential beneficiaries, which partially explains the low take-up of innovation services. But the negative impacts are much broader. In many Romanian regions, the understanding of innovation, its potential benefits and the S3 remain poorly understood. Businesses and organisations with nascent innovation interests remain disconnected and isolated. Improved communications and stakeholder engagement can help to address these issues but will require a new approach from the RDAs to connect with, engage and influence innovation actors in their respective regions.
Communications and engagement
Romanian RDAs tend to be well-regarded by their regional stakeholders but there has been insufficient investment in systematic communication and engagement related to innovation support. As such, awareness of the innovation role RDAs play is frequently vague and there was limited evidence that RDAs had invested in strong communication plans. As a consequence, RDA visibility concerning innovation services within their respective regions is often weak. While there was some awareness of the RDAs more generally, stakeholders tended to be less informed about their innovation function. This absence of promotional efforts also meant that the regions had yet to put in place a strong innovation narrative that outlined what innovation is and what value could be realised through accessing innovation support.
Further, the communication strategies that have been implemented to connect with innovation stakeholders are limited in scale, could be better targeted and make better use of today’s variety of existing media channels. This constrains their ability to generate widespread visibility (OECD, 2023[1]). Alongside the relatively limited outreach efforts of RDAs to communicate their innovation roles and services, there was also a tendency for communications to be poorly targeted. This reduces the possibility of audiences receiving a consistent message on multiple occasions, which is much more likely to be comprehended and remembered than a single communication.
A more strategic approach to communications – using different messages and media to engage with different innovation actors according to their specific interests and needs – would help improve RDA engagement with its more important stakeholders. Within the majority of RDAs, there was scant evidence that efforts had been made to categorise their quadruple helix innovation communities, either by group (such as public sector, private sector, academic, research sector or civil society), industrial sector or geographical communities within their regions. This incomplete approach to communication makes it difficult to share information that is relevant for individual actors. A more strategic approach to communications with the innovation network would make it easier to share relevant information with individual actors and is a way to avoid generic communications.
A new approach is needed to connect with regional stakeholders
Most RDAs need to improve and diversify innovation-related communications directed towards regional stakeholders by using new channels and a more tailored approach to reach specific audiences. These steps would enable key messages to be adapted to match the characteristics and interests of different stakeholder groups. Some ways to re-energise these efforts and develop a more systematic communications plan are indicated below:
Design and deliver a comprehensive consultation exercise that allows for deeper engagement with different stakeholder groups while demonstrating a clear commitment from the RDA to better understand the needs of the quadruple helix. This type of exercise should also promote the visibility and value of RDAs in the innovation roles they play.
Review the most effective and flexible methods for sustaining communication and engagement with regional innovation stakeholders. This review should include the whole range of communication tools, channels and content, including the broad innovation narrative. Identifying the language that best supports perceptions of professionalism, trust and expertise should be at the core of this exercise, as should opportunities to reinforce and optimise the diffusion of key messages.
Ongoing monitoring and collection of communications data across these themes. Measuring audience reach and engagement with RDA communications should be undertaken quarterly, aiming to monitor the impact of communication processes and their outcomes. This will allow periodic updates to communications messages and channels to ensure their relevance and respond to changes in market conditions or media consumption habits.
In order to understand regional innovation needs and to demonstrate the importance of this to the broader innovation community, RDAs could design a consultation process with stakeholders such as businesses, civil society organisations and citizens to identify and share views on key challenges and opportunities. Below are four steps (Wouters, 2021[25]) for conducting an inclusive stakeholder engagement process:
1. Stakeholder identification: this entails mapping innovation stakeholders in the region, both internal (to the RDA) and external (to the wider regional community). Team brainstorming can help to ensure as many stakeholders as possible are identified, as well as their characteristics in terms of possible interests in and connections to the wider innovation ecosystem. A database can support this process.
2. Stakeholder engagement plan: this plan should define the type of relationship and relative involvement that the RDA wishes to have with its stakeholders and how it will ensure ongoing and effective communication with them. The plan should include information on the frequency of communication and methods of engagement (e.g. focus groups, questionnaires, interviews). At a later stage, an evaluation of the engagement plan will help to verify whether objectives have been achieved.
3. Continuous interaction with innovation stakeholders: the stakeholder engagement plan should be used to build relationships. Stakeholder trust is more likely if communication is consistent, transparent and inclusive. Creating clear communication channels and an open space for stakeholders to express their opinions is crucial for success. For instance, organising regular roundtables with all regional innovation actors could be an appropriate measure, as well as clear online access points.
4. Accountability with innovation stakeholders: when in dialogue with different stakeholder groups, it is important to keep track of the commitments made to them and to communicate regularly on the progress of such commitments. Stakeholders should know whether their suggestions have been taken into account by the RDA, what actions have been taken and how the results are being monitored.
Co-ordination and co-operation with innovation stakeholders
The relatively low level of performance of regional innovation in Romania, together with a governance system that tends to generate a siloed approach to related innovation support programmes and strategies within RDAs, means that innovation partnerships across the regions are underdeveloped. The lack of co-ordination of and co-operation among innovation actors has implications. First, potentially productive innovation partnerships are less likely to develop organically despite the benefits that both parties would likely realise if it took place. Second, innovation support services provided by RDAs can be less impactful, as innovation projects pursued by beneficiaries often require local suppliers, partners, and customers to have the desired effect. Third, a diffuse innovation community is a deterrent to attracting new investment and skilled workers, which in turn slows innovation and regional economic development progress.
RDAs could more fully adopt a facilitation function that could connect innovation actors. To date, the focus has been on providing support to individual businesses and organisations, which has assisted them in pursuing innovation projects but has done little to strengthen the broader regional innovation ecosystem.
RDA co-ordination of innovation actors is particularly important in Romania due to low rates of university-industry collaboration. Many collaborations that have developed within the regions are rudimentary and insufficiently market-oriented. In some regions, there are challenges in engaging local universities with the wider innovation system and university-business collaborations are sometimes not sufficiently geared towards transforming innovative ideas into concrete products or services that meet consumer needs.
Collaboration will require buy-in from all actors and sub-regions
Actors from different sub-regions and different parts of the quadruple helix need to have clear and concrete reasons for making an investment in learning more about each other as a precursor to co-creating an innovation ecosystem orientation. Therefore, details about any previous collaborative efforts facilitated by RDAs should be shared broadly by the RDA throughout the region. Examples from other EU countries and regions can also act as a source of inspiration.
The RDAs should also invest in designing, organising and facilitating events and discussions that help to improve knowledge and trust across quadruple helix actors. These can be supported by other similar interactive events, such as challenge labs. Within the European Union, these events are usually designed around big, modern-day problems and themes with wide applicability, such as food security (EIT Food, 2022[26]), modernisation of university education (STARS EU, 2023[27]) and other pressing societal challenges. This approach could also be tested in Romania, focusing on themes that affect all regions and could include collaboration with the university network, which could provide facilities and valuable academic expertise. The experience in the Abruzzo region of Italy highlights the significant benefits as well as complexities and potential hurdles of industry-academia collaboration (Box 4.9).
Connecting enterprise and academia in Italy’s Abruzzo region
In the 2014-20 EU programming period, Abruzzo’s strategy of bringing together academia and the private sector did not deliver the anticipated job creation (Fontana, Bisogni and Renwick, 2023[28]). The limited involvement of small enterprises compared to medium-sized enterprises was identified as a key factor to be improved. In response, the region’s current S3 introduced a diversified approach to working with SMEs through a greater articulation of the technological readiness trajectories related to different projects. Another lesson from the Abruzzo experience – highly relevant to Romanian regions – is the uneven growth rate of the strategic sectors within the S3. For example, while the technology sector is developing rapidly, the tourism sector is lagging behind due to its fragmented nature, consisting of small, micro and individual businesses that are not well networked. There are also implications for the agriculture sector in Romanian regions and pathways to diversification and upgrading driven by technology. Such collaboration is not a guaranteed solution for regional innovation but it does provide valuable insights into broader strategic issues that may need to be addressed in the pursuit of an ecosystem-based approach.
The Challenge Lab in North Middle Sweden
In 2019, the region of North Middle Sweden established a space for collaborative transformation and trust building in the region: the Challenge Lab North Middle Sweden (Douglas, Holmberg and Holmén, 2021[29]). In a first step, the region formed a working group to identify and frame the challenge with which the lab should work. The region decided to focus on how to develop hydrogen because of its regional focus on sustainable production and advanced manufacturing. In a second step, the Challenge Lab designed a series of workshops to establish guiding principles, analyse the current situation and gaps, focus on the potential in the region to bridge the gap and identify priority actions and next steps.
An important focus of the Challenge Lab was stakeholder engagement from the region’s quadruple helix. lab has been instrumental in building closer relationships among actors that did not previously co-operate. Not only has it strengthened co-operation activities among the different partners but it has also led to joint applications for EU projects, generating opportunities for collaboration.
Source: Fontana, S., F. Bisogni and R. Renwick (2023[28]), The Future of Regional Smart Specialisation Strategies: Sustainable, Inclusive and Resilient; Douglas, A., J. Holmberg and J. Holmén (2021[29]), Challenge Lab NMS Log Book: Exploring the Role of Hydrogen in Realising a Good Life in North Middle Sweden through Circular and Low Carbon Industrial Transformation.
Beneficiary understanding of innovation and S3 promotion
The potential beneficiaries in most regions of Romania, with the exception of the North-West and Bucharest-Ilfov, were reported by the RDAs to have an incomplete understanding of what innovation means or how it could assist them. This absence of knowledge also extends to a lack of awareness of different types of innovation support, their relevance and value. Furthermore, the language used by RDAs when describing innovation and offering support services has been perceived by many regional stakeholders and beneficiaries to be disconnected from their most pressing needs (OECD, 2023[1]). In many instances, even the regional S3 is not well-known across the innovation stakeholder community and its value is not well-understood, especially in the business sector. As a consequence, it can be difficult to engage and provide assistance to large sections of the innovation community within RDAs.
Greater awareness is an essential first step towards understanding
Some RDAs could benefit from investing in a wide-ranging information and awareness-raising campaign to improve knowledge and understanding of innovation across their regions. A campaign of this kind should be focused on members of the quadruple helix. Targeted messaging for different stakeholder groups will be essential, appealing to their different needs, interests, and levels of comprehension about the value of innovation.
The innovation support services provided by RDAs should not be positioned or promoted as an independent function since their value is best understood in the context of both the regional development plans and the Regional Programmes. For this reason, innovation consortia can play a very powerful role in supporting RDAs to translate the relevance of S3 through core regional challenges and ambitions. Therefore, RDAs and innovation consortia should consider a collective, regional response to creating and disseminating a joint narrative and key messages about innovation challenges and actions. Promoting consistency across the S3, Regional Programmes and regional development plans can help to create a level of coherence while promoting the relevance of S3 to regional development challenges and opportunities.
Across the RDAs, there is scope to strengthen regional innovation governance structures through existing innovation consortia (or similar fora). Maximising the engagement and commitment of quadruple helix actors who are part of these fora is critical and is strongly connected to S3’s Entrepreneurial Discovery Process. Fully integrating these actors into regional innovation planning and implementation requires continuous investment and support to build ownership and commitment. Part of this investment also requires that actors get to know each other better and understand the added value to their own organisation of collaboration across the quadruple helix. Having this group act as champions for regional innovation is critical for diffusing interest and uptake of innovation support across the regions.
It is equally important for RDAs to consult with innovation stakeholders to understand the bottlenecks that sometimes prevent effective engagement and collaboration. Exploring breakdowns in feedback loops offers an interesting approach to consulting with innovation consortia members (individually and collectively) and could also help RDAs to understand better what motivates members in playing a continuous and more strategic role in the consortia setting. Areas of particular significance for review with members are:
Cost, time and distance: across the whole territory of the region, there are costs and challenges involved in accessing innovation support. Consortia membership can help sustain interest and engagement by providing feedback about the nature of innovation support in the region and how this might be upgraded.
Lack of will and capacity: unless members understand the relevance to them of being part of the innovation consortium and unless they feel able to contribute, they are unlikely to prioritise their engagement.
Information asymmetry: this relates to dynamics across the members of the innovation consortium, who have different incentives and motivations related to innovation and probably use different innovation language and terminology. Furthermore, across the group, there will be different levels of knowledge. These imbalances can create different power dynamics in how the innovation consortium performs. In turn, this can lead to unfulfilled expectations for all parties. Joint capacity building offers a means to explore these differences across the group to build trust and understanding. Importantly, the differences across the membership need to be harnessed as an advantage for the region since these members represent the different innovation communities of the regions.
Furthermore, there could be merit for some RDAs to extend awareness-raising about innovation to an EU dimension, explaining the evolution of EU Innovation Policy over the last ten years and its connection to each specific region and S3. With strong visuals and jargon-free language, capacity-building sessions could be supported by innovation intermediaries, inviting reactions and feedback. Connecting the European Union’s innovation story to the regional one is very important, not least in promoting the value of innovation collaboration to improve performance at local levels. EU innovation networks could also support this kind of effort by offering short insights – through videos, written case studies or online exchange sessions – from different EU regions into innovation projects and initiatives, especially where these mobilise different partners across the quadruple helix.
S3 promotion can be achieved by engaging stakeholders through domain-related interests
Aligning S3 domains to the regional development plans could help create a new level of relevance and interest across RDA innovation communities. A core group of regional actors from across the quadruple helix could be mobilised to act as champions under each domain, setting out the relevance of the domains to all stakeholder groups and to all territories of the region. Opportunities to identify both diversification potential and collaboration should be encouraged.
Future opportunities and challenges
Many EU regions face challenges related to disparities, inequalities and a slow pace of convergence with their EU peers (European Commission, 2022[30]). Furthermore, the recent Innovation Scoreboard and Regional Innovation Scoreboard reports have shown that an innovation divide still exists across the European Union. Romanian regions remain less developed in their status and are all classified as “emerging innovators”. In addition to improved capacity to deliver high-quality and targeted innovation support, RDAs should remain vigilant to EU policy and investment opportunities that might complement domestic efforts to improve this classification.
RDAs should also consider working together to both evidence the challenges they face and mobilise efforts to connect with and access EU-level support. For example, the EU Green Deal agenda seeks to address digital and energy transition challenges through a wide range of policy and support measures and could provide future opportunities for Romanian RDAs to support innovation. To best prepare for and capitalise on future EU support, it is important that these challenges are further embedded in regional innovation frameworks. Sharing of practice across the RDAs, to support knowledge and capacity related to digital and green innovation, would further assist in the preparation for future collaboration with EU programmes. Furthermore, by harnessing the collective knowledge and capacity of regional innovation ecosystems, RDAs can help to identify specific opportunities and projects that align with these EU-wide priorities.
There is strong evidence that Romania is investing more in digital infrastructure, with information and communication technology growing at around 8% nationally between 2017 and 2021 (McKinsey & Company, 2022[31]). This trend could help spur digital innovation developments, not least where the public sector can adopt a catalysing role. Collective efforts across the RDAs could help to strengthen the evidence base of performance, demand and potential, especially where RDAs are able to connect their innovation ecosystems to maximise expertise and investments. The potential networking of Digital Innovation Hubs (European Commission, 2023[32]) could support this direction championed by the RDAs. Discussions with the national government could also help to unlock and spread the benefits of digital infrastructure investments, not least by providing a bottom-up intelligence base of digital skill needs.
Potential innovation goals and objectives for RDAs
The anchoring capacity of Romanian regional development plans to better ground and connect the objectives of the Regional Programmes and S3 is a powerful tool in the hands of the RDAs. Acting as strategic conveners, the RDAs have the potential to carve out stronger added-value roles for regional innovation.
RDAs have been somewhat hampered by capacity challenges owing to the recent shift in their roles as Managing Authorities. At the same time, a dynamic EU Innovation Policy agenda is taking shape with many opportunities to both influence its direction and to take part in related opportunities. Staying informed of these opportunities is not easy, especially because not every RDA has a permanent presence in Brussels to track developments and generate EU engagement opportunities. Designing a more collaborative and systemic approach to engagement with relevant EU innovation networks is also critical but can be expensive and time-consuming. RDAs could collectively discuss possible options to increase visibility, profile and proximity to EU spheres of innovation policy influence.
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Notes
← 1. A quadruple-helix collaboration is a form of collaboration in research and development between the four major sectors of society: industry, government, research institutes, and the public (European Commission, 2021[33]).
← 2. New ideas, activities or products that have the power to transform an industry or organisation. Within the EU innovation policy context, it refers to innovations that will help address societal challenges and support large-scale transitions (Laranja, Perianez Forte and Reimeris, 2022[34])
← 3. https://s3platform.jrc.ec.europa.eu/
← 4. The 2023 Regional Innovation Scoreboard noted that the capital region’s innovation performance is more than three times greater than the lowest performing region (South-East) (European Commission, 2023[8]).
← 5. https://commission.europa.eu/funding-tenders/find-funding/eu-funding-programmes/technical-support-instrument/technical-support-instrument-tsi/technical-support-instrument-2024-call_en.