Minutes January 10th, 2006

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PERIPHERAL LOCALITIES AND INNOVATION POLICIES

 

MINUTES OF THE PLIP VIDEO CONFERENCE MEETING

 

January 10th, 2006

13:00 – approx. 14:45 Finnish time

 
Participants:

Seija Virkkala and Kristiina Niemi in Kokkola

Mats Johansson and Riikka Ikonen in Stockholm

Hjalti Jóhannesson and Guðmundur Ævar Oddsson in Akureyri

Klaus Lindegaard in Esbjerg

 

The Norwegian team was not able to attend due to technical problems.

 

The agenda of the meeting was e-mailed to participants January 5th.

 

Some material related to the comparative analysis was e-mailed to participants January 9th.

 

I round: Introduction

Seija opened the meeting and welcomed the participants. She noted that the agenda has been e-mailed to everyone beforehand, and she also discussed the practicalities concerning the meeting. She said that the Finnish team will record the meeting and make the minutes.

In the first round participants were asked besides introductions to possible comment on the minutes of the previous videoconference Nov 8, especially on the matrix concerning matching the good practices and the good practice analysis.

The only specific comment was from Klaus who said that the question of transferring the food and tourism case in Lofoten to Denmark (the question mark in the matrix of the minutes) should be discussed between the Norwegian and the Danish teams.

 

II round: The comparative analysis: country reports

In the second round the participants gave a short presentation of their country report, stated the status of their country report and commented on the disposition of country reports. There was also some discussion based on Seija’s comments.

At first Seija told that only one of the country reports has been delivered in time, the Icelandic one. The idea with the country reports is to describe national and regional level policies concerning small towns and rural areas. The regional level is our case study areas, which are like laboratories of the national level. Seija also remarked that the country reports must be shorter for the final report, but we will discuss that in the workshop in March.

The Finnish team has a draft ready. Seija presented some aspects of technology policy, spatial polarisation, regional policy and rural policy in Finland.

The Icelandic team delivered their country report in mid December. The report is nearly complete and very much based on the ISP report. Hjalti and Guðmundur told something about innovation policy in Iceland. Concerning the linkages between science and technology policy and regional policy Hjalti and Guðmundur commented that there are some regional aspects in the science and technology policy and that there are institutions which have a regional role and trough which these linkages exist.

Klaus told that the Danish team is in a process of completing and up-dating the country report. Klaus discussed the innovation policy from the regional point of view in Denmark and the big regional restructuring that is going on at the moment. Regarding the impact of the administrative reform on the Danish bottom-up local development and on the role of municipalities and counties Klaus reckoned that the reform implies changes both from bottom-up and from top down. He also discussed the role of technology centres. Klaus said he will send the country report to coordinator within ten days.

Riikka told something about the Swedish innovation policy. Mats discussed the changes in the regional policy in Sweden and stated that there is no explicit traditional regional policy in Sweden today that is focused on peripheral areas instead the competitiveness of each region is emphasised. Mats also discussed the sectoral policy aspects. Seija specified that by sectoral policies in the PLIP context we mean for example different industrial or cluster policies and that our focus in on sectoral policies that are facilitating innovations in peripheral areas. The Swedish team will complete their country report for the comparative analysis.

 

III round: What next with country reports?

Regarding the country reports Seija noted that Denmark and Sweden are still going to rewrite something and Iceland is ready.

There is a lot of information on national innovation policies, for example the European Trend Chart on Innovation, and this data can also be compared. What is really needed from the country teams are the descriptions of relevant policies on innovation from the perspective of small centres and rural areas, because this cannot be found in existing documents. The same goes with description of local and regional level innovation conditions. Accordingly the country teams should concentrate on these matters.

Seija presented a suggestion concerning the tasks and the timetable for the comparative analysis:

Completing the country reports –dead line February 15, 2006

Comments of co-ordinator

Comparative analysis made by coordinator based on country reports and other material

- will be ready beginning of March

Short presentations of country reports by country teams and comparative analysis by co-ordinator in the 2. research workshop

 This plan was agreed on. Klaus noted that the suggestion sounds realistic especially when we devote some time to the comparative analysis in the next workshop.

 

IV Some preliminary comparison

Seija remarked that the material e-mailed to participants in the previous day was only to show that there already exists material that can be used in the comparison. The comparison is in progress and the country reports are needed for that.

Seija presented some ideas of how to outline all the material on innovation and knowledge. She presented the tables below as one possibility to organise the vast material we have. Seija will develop these distinctions among others in the comparative analysis. 

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INNOVATION AND KNOWLEDGE BASE IN SMALL TOWNS AND RURAL AREAS - DIFFERENT STRATEGIES/POLICIES (PERIPHERAL AREAS) IN NORDIC COUNTRIES

  RESEARCH &
DEVELOPMENT BASED
INNOVATION
INNOVATION BASED ON
SYNTHETIC KNOWLEDGE
INSIDE THE
PERIPHERAL
REGION
(ENDOGENOUS STRATEGY)
   
OUTSIDE THE PERIPHERAL
REGION
(INTEGRATION
STRATEGY)
   

 

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

INNOVATION IN SMALL TOWNS AND RURAL AREAS
- DIFFERENT STRATEGIES/POLICIES

 

I DEVELOPING THE INNOVATION CAPABILITIES OF SMEs

 

- INVESTMENTS, UPGRADING SKILLS ETC.

 

II DEVELOPING THE SECTOR OR CLUSTER

 

III DEVELOPING THE INNOVATION MILIEU IN THE REGIONS

 

- EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTES

- INFRASTRUCTURE

- SUPPORTING AGENTS

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Regarding the first picture Klaus remarked that it is a profile of present policies and strategies from the governments (states) point of view but not the innovation practices of the businesses. Maybe it is a good idea to profile political priorities in stimulating innovation capabilities of firms in peripheral areas. Furthermore Klaus suggested that we would not use the term “synthetic knowledge” but instead would call it practical knowledge.

Seija emphasised that the effort with the comparative analysis is only a rather small part in the whole project and in order to do it, we need some kind of outline to organise all the material from different countries.

Klaus discussed the partnership model table (e-mailed the previous day) from the point of view of Denmark’s peripheral areas and in his opinion the model would be good to use in summing up the innovation policy styles.

 

V Other issues 

Seija stressed that every country team has to mail the regnskapsreport of PLIP – the hard copy with signature - to Seija this week. The report should include all the paid costs from last year. (An e-mail about this was sent to all participants December 19th.)

Denmark is taking the initiative in NICe’s new call for proposals and will e-mail ideas on this. Others can comment and express an interest in participating it. We had some discussion on the proposal. Two of the themes came up; “evaluation of innovation systems” and continuing this network (Klaus) and “innovation in the service sector” (Mats). The regions in the possible new project don’t have to be the same as in the ISP and PLIP projects.

 

VI Closing

We made a decision on the dates of the next research workshop. It will take place in March 8th and 9th, 2006 in Kokkola.

Seija closed the meeting and thanked participants.