From regional strategies and projects to best practices in the field of Health and Active Ageing – ACSELL 1st twinning workshop

23. 03. 2021

In the framework of the ACSELL project, the Central European Initiative Executive Secretariat and the Technology Park Ljubljana established a twinning to exchange best practices, gain knowledge and build synergies in the field of health, innovation, and living lab approaches. In this context, several workshops will take place to share this experience with relevant regional and national stakeholders and explore further opportunities for mutual development and growth.

The first online workshop was held on March 18th during which the twinning partners presented their main achievements in the field of health, innovation and living lab, with some inputs on the best practices which will be further discussed in the following workshops. Ms. Annalisa Viezzoli and Ms. Laura Citossi from the Autonomous Region Friuli Venezia Giulia presented the relevant regional strategies, starting from the smart specialization strategy in terms of health, to the establishment of the active and healthy ageing regional living lab. Moreover, Ms. Citossi presented the AAL (Active Ageing in the Digital World) Forum 2021 which is foreseen as an online event in October 2021 as an ecosystem that promotes a new social and economic approach to grow a more inclusive silver economy benefiting individuals, society and industry.

Mr. Massimiliano Rudella, spoke on behalf Area Science park and gave an overlook to the ARGO system, which is an open innovation system based on research and innovation to enhance economic growth and development. The system was firstly developed as a regional experiment and is now being applied to the entire Italian territory.

Mr. Janez Šušteršič, RE-FORMA Ltd, Ex-Vice president of the Economic Policy Committee of the European Council, and the Minister of Finance in the Slovenian government spoke about the analysis performed to identify internationally competitive economic activities and research groups and support the process of »entrepreneurial discovery« and revision of the Strategy. The results showed that the classifications of economic activities and research areas do not directly match to the idea of ‚growth poles‘ of the Smart Specialization Strategy. Moreover the analysis is intended as as support to – and not as a replacement for - further ‚discovery‘ and collaborative innovation efforts within groups, networks and Strategic Innovation and Development Partnerships.

The next online workshop will be held on March 29th on the topic Demonstration and Living Lab in the field of Health and Open Innovation.

The ACSELL (ACcelerating SmE innovation capacities with a Living Lab approach) project is funded under Interreg Europe Programme and involves ten EU regions with the aim to improve innovation and development policies for open innovation ecosystems, to sensitize political decision-makers and SMEs towards Living Lab approach and to boost SME innovation capacities, in line with „Blueprint for cities and regions as launch-pads for digital transformation“ by the European Commission.

The Central European Initiative is the largest forum for regional cooperation in Europe with 17 Member states, supporting the European integration and sustainable development through a combination of multilateral diplomacy and result-oriented operations between and among its Member States, and with the European Union, international and regional organizations as well as with other public or private institutions and non-governmental organizations. Since several years, the CEI-ES has been cooperating with research centers to facilitate interactions between science, innovation, and business, including through dedicated actions such as the awards “From Research to Enterprise” and “Innovative SMEs”.

Technology Park Ljubljana is an innovation hub supporting talents, start-ups, and SMEs with comprehensive business support upon lean and open innovation methodologies including access to funding, investors and networks for business and strategic cooperation. One of its most important roles is to act as a catalyst enabling constant knowledge transfer between research and companies and to act as a bridge between SMEs and industry leaders