The objectives of Innovation County Action Plan intended to:

• Increase county’s economic competitiviness through stimulation of innovative activities

• increase of county’s economic atractiveness

• promote innovation-friendly climate and of domestic entrepreneurship

• stimulate the cooperation between business, academic and research institutes environment  in order to exploit the research results

• existence of a consistent innovation-related county plan, financially and politically supported by Maramures County Council and local communities

The document is available below:

Maramures Innovation County Action Plan

Download the ideas for mainstreaming here.

Bill Greenhalgh from the North West Development Agency, highlighted the opportunities to partners available to them through working in partnership with the region. Representatives from Envirolink, BioNow, and Food North West, the Cluster Development Organisations in the NW of England engaged with cluster and sectoral support, met with the partners to offer their assistance.

Prior to the meeting, the Romanian and Hungarian delegates, as well as the representatives from Greece, were given a tour of the new Media City site in Salford Quays to set the scene for the day’s discussions and show what can be achieved in the longer term.

To download the presentation by Bill Greenhalgh, click here

To view the video of FoodNW, click here

The website for EnvirolinkNW is available here

The website for BioNow is available here

The promotion of the cluster system’s good practice is a relevant topic both in the Veneto Region agenda and in the implementation of the INTERREG IVC project MINI EUROPE. The Maramures delegation included representatives of the academic and the business community: Prof Dr. Eng Radu Cotetiu, the Dean of Engineering Faculty, North University Baia Mare, Prof. Dr. Eng Mircea Lobontiu, director of Engineering and Technological Management Department, Engineering Faculty, North University Baia Mare; Florentin Tus, secretary general of Chamber of Commerce and Industry Maramures, Lucian Micu, director of marketing – AMI SA Company, Nicolae Dascalescu, director TECHNOCAD SA Company and Mihaela Lite – regional manager MINIEUROPE.

During the opening session, Mr. Michele Pelloso, the Director of the Industry Department of the Veneto Region, introduced the visit emphasising the importance to share Good Practices to improve regional policies.  Mr. Pier Antonio Nicoletti, Responsible of the Regional District Office, presented the Regional Scheme supporting Clusters.

Three different Veneto Region clusters shared their experience: the Footwear Cluster presented by Ms. Simionato Claudia, the Refricold Cluster presented by Ms. Roberta D’Orazio and the Nanotech Cluster presented by Ms. Federica Lodato.

The event continued with a visit of NanoFAB, the Veneto Nanotech laboratory set in the Science Park VEGA in Venice and with a meeting with Veneto Union of the Chambers of Commerce of Veneto Region, Mr. Francesco Pareti.

Mr. Nicoletti underlined the added value al that an SME can acquire as a cluster member. The cluster’s SMEs, in fact, can maintain their individuality and at the same time have access to opportunities typical of large companies like fair participation, access to new markets and utilization of innovative materials and tools.

Mr. Nicoletti brought two examples: the participation of the Packaging Cluster to an important trade fair where  the SMEs  promoted themselves with a unique coordinated image (same stands, layout and catalogue) as a one stop shop for their big clients. The other one:  the possibiliy for the “Carousel”  cluster to involve the Aerospace department of Padua University in the research of the velocity effects on human body in order to prevent possible accidents and disseminate the results in all the cluster companies.

Catalogue of Good Practices ro

Apart from the good practice descrition, the catalogue also contains a judgement on the transferability of the practices.

The practices are now available here:  Mini Europe good practice catalogue update May 2011

The ideal would be that these exchanges be based for of all on the trade relations between the SMEs.

The low level of visibility regarding the real economic situation in the Region, the business environment, the opportunities and the lack of information often made both the Romanian and the Ukrainian investor avoid mutual investments as well as business contacts. Moreover, other elements that act as an impediment in the development are represented by the language barrier, since business English is not so common in the Ukrainian business environment as it is in the Romanian one.

This practice aims to:

•  Setting up a network of three pilot centers/bureaus “RURCED” in Baia Mare, Satu Mare and Uzhgorod.
• Preparing an strategy for economic development of the cross-border region Romania (Maramures, Satu Mare) and Ukraine (Zakarpatska and Ivano-Frankivsk) and preparing the economic profile of the region;
•- Organizing six economic missions and the taking part into three exhibition-fairs;
•- implementing communication instruments:

•  on-line communication under the form of an interactive “RURCED” web site;
•  creating and disseminating a “Romanian-Ukrainian Business Breviary”;
•  setting up of a network of business translators, made up of Romanian and Ukrainian translators for commercial English

The main problem tackled is referred to online training of SMEs in project management, in fact through this activity we planned to make a double impact:

• to train people from different organisations and companies

• to introduce new techniques of training in topics which are hot for the Romanian companies