Leveraging WestBIC’s European Networks to Foster Regional Enterprise and Innovation
Through our active European networks, WestBIC adopts a dynamic approach to foster the scaling and growth of innovative enterprise and strengthen the business support eco-system across our region.
As the official EU BIC in the Northern and Western region of Ireland, WestBIC collaborates in a range of projects with members of the European Network of Business Innovation Centres (EBN) and other similar organisations across Europe, aimed at fostering innovative entrepreneurship, capitalising on business opportunities and tackling common challenges to stimulate economic growth, enterprise and job creation. For example, current challenges and issues that are targeted include:
· Twin transition-driven innovation relating to digitalisation and the green economy, to develop a more responsive, resilient ecosystem and targeting specific sectors to support the achievement of European goals.
· Pursuing a smart specialisation (S3) strategic approach, supporting growth sectors of regional importance.
· Investment and growth opportunities for priority sectors in the regional economy.
Benefits of Collaborative Projects
Participation in collaborative projects provides a range of benefits to the regional enterprise and innovation eco-system, including:
· Access to recognised good practice approaches and methodologies aimed at supporting innovative enterprise and fostering their scaling and growth.
· Specialist hands-on support for the development of enterprises in new sectors, including transitioning to smart specialisation sectors (S3).
· Access to targeted accelerator and pilot funding to foster enterprises and priority sectors.
· Continuous professional development of the delivery team, through engagement with peers across Europe, ensuring access to latest knowledge, trends and know-how and state-of-the-art methods and approaches to foster and support innovative high-growth enterprise.
WestBIC’s varied project portfolio currently include those supported through the Interreg family of programmes, Erasmus+, Horizon Europe, EIT, COSME, Creative Europe, PEACE and other relevant programmes.
Multiplier Effects through Engaging Local Stakeholders
To ensure an integrated regional approach and maximise project potential, and to embed new approaches to strengthen the regional innovation eco-system, it is advisable to engage with local and regional stakeholders in project design and delivery from the outset. WestBIC engages with a wide range of regional actors in the implementation of projects, with current collaborating participants including Local Enterprise Offices, Local Authorities, Enterprise Ireland, Higher Education Institutes, Northern & Western Regional Assembly, the Western Development Commission, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, Údarás na Gaeltachta, ERNACT and BIM.
At a basic level, collaborative projects serve as inspiration for local and regional stakeholders to enhance the support infrastructure and ecosystem for innovative enterprise, building on European good practices. Examples include projects that inspired the development of specialist incubators in growth sectors, food centres and connected enterprise hubs across the region, learning from centres of excellence across Europe.
Other projects develop and utilise interregional methodologies and collaborative supports to integrate ecosystems at an EU level to foster new entrepreneurship, access new markets and encourage enterprise scaling and growth. Recent examples include projects focussed on women-led entrepreneurship, enhancing performance of traditional enterprise through digital innovation, Start-Up Academy to accelerate digital enterprise and projects providing targeted support to priority sectors including med-tech, bio-pharma, tourism and the experience economy.
New projects underway are aimed at addressing current challenges and opportunities, including:
· Enhancing the investment eco-system to encourage, attract and retain the next generation of high-growth companies, soonicorns and unicorns.
· Place-based approach to transition from traditional industries to smart specialisation sectors with enterprise and job creation potential.
· AR/VR, AI and Big Data to transform enterprise and foster new business opportunities.
Collaborative Projects — Do’s and Don’ts:
WestBIC’s extensive experience in collaborative projects facilitates efficient delivery and helps to overcome the risks and avoid pitfalls that can be associated with participation, whilst taking advantage of the benefits and opportunities that they provide:
· Fortune favours the brave — Do prioritise forward-thinking proposals that can add value to your client base and can enhance the regional enterprise and innovation eco-system — e.g. to develop new growth sectors, access new markets, technologies and interregional partnerships, access seed investment and scaling finance.
· Many hands make light work — Do collaborate with regional stakeholders; this makes initiatives easier to deliver and ensures the embedding of new approaches and know-how.
· A stitch in time — Do have good project management systems in place, including enduring methods for recording project activity and finances, as all aspects of projects are subject to audit verification. It is always best to have suitable systems in place in advance.
· Two heads are better that one — Do share activities across project teams; this ensures a balanced distribution of knowledge acquisition and upskilling and results in more efficient delivery, with the added creativity and inspiration provided by wider team participation.
· Failure to plan is planning to fail — Do plan resources for project delivery in advance, as projects should add value to your service offering and the support eco-system, rather than becoming an unnecessary burden.
· When in doubt, leave it out — Don’t pursue projects with unfamiliar themes and activities of questionable added value. Invariably, such projects prove difficult to deliver, with minimal impact and limited long term benefit.
· Too many cooks — Don’t seek to duplicate or compete with existing initiatives, instead it is wiser to collaborative with regional actors to add value and maximise the use of limited resources for the overall benefit of the regional economy.
More information
For more information on WestBIC’s current range of collaborative projects click here.
