Interreg MINI EUROPE/sharing practices » economic development http://interreg-minieurope.com European regions exchange and develop regional practices in SME development and innovation infrastructure Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:05:39 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 “Innovation & SMEs: European Best Practices” in Patras http://interreg-minieurope.com/news/innovation-and-smes-in-patras/ http://interreg-minieurope.com/news/innovation-and-smes-in-patras/#comments Fri, 19 Nov 2010 14:36:59 +0000 Western Greece http://interreg-minieurope.com/?p=1215


MINI EUROPE in the “Forum for Regional Development 2010 – 13th Money Show Patras” on 16 October 2010

The development and the innovation of SMEs within the Region of Western Greece constituted the central theme of the session “Innovation and Small-Medium Enterprises: European Best Practices” held on Saturday, October 16th, in the framework of the Forum of Regional Development 2010 – 13th Money Show Patras”. The session was organized by Patras Science Park (PSP) S.A. under the auspices of the transnational and interregional project MINI EUROPE.

During the session, the invited speakers presented successful European Best Practices suitable for the development of the SMEs within the Region of Western Greece, with special focus on the results and experiences of the best practices successfully implemented in other european regions as selected for exchange and implementation within the framework of the MINI EUROPE project.

Εnterpreneurs of the Region of Western Greece, young researchers and professors from local Universities and research institutions, as well as representatives of the local and regional authorities attended the session.

Chairman of the session was Dr. Chrysostomos Stylios, Regional Content Manager of the Project MINI EUROPE and Research & Development Consultant of Patras Science Park, who made a short introduction to the project Mini Europe, its scope and its achievements so far.

Picture 1: (from left to right) Mr. G. Mentzelopoulos, Mr. G.Tzovolos, Mr. N. Thomopoulos and Dr. Chr. Stylios

Then Mr. Gerasimos Mentzelopoulos, PSP General Director, presented Patras Science Park activities and its goals that could be summarized in the “promotion of innovative ideas and solutions that will help SMEs to be developed and become more competitive”.

Mr. Evaggelos Papadakis, Assist. Prof. at the University of Western Greece, analyzed the terms “social enterprise network” and “cluster”. As he explained, the social enterprise network stands somewhere in the middle of public and private enterprise, reminding what we used to call “association”. Referring to the clusters, he said that are groups of enterprises interconnected thematically and geographically in order to serve the same goals. As he mentioned during his presentation, clusters have been already established in Western Greece, such as the Watertech cluster -which resulted from the implementation of the project Regional Innovation Pole of Western Greece-, and the local community (companies, researchers, authorities and public) has been greatly benefited from them.

Ms. Eleni Arvaniti, PSP associate, presented i-creo, a programme successfully implemented since 2006 in Spain, in the Region of Valencia. The philosophy of i-creo is to create a flexible body of experts hired by the associations of every productive sector within a region in order to propose and promote innovation as a means of their upgrade. Ms Arvaniti highlighted that the tranfer and implementation of this best practice in the Region of Western Greece will boost local SMEs that have no other way to access innovation. Bodies that can participate and support the transfer of this best practice are the productive sectors, Chambers of Commerce, Regional Authorities, Research Institutions etc. and, as she explained, there is already a plan for the adoption of the i-creo practice in the area of Etoloakarnania with the collaboration of the local Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Nikolaos Thomopoulos, from the Managing Authority of the Region of Western Greece, made a presentation about the opportunities for funding SMEs through European projects and he referred to the experience gained by the implementation of another project LEAD ERA, explaining and proving that projects based on transnational collaborations can really function as driving forces for the development of local SMEs.

Afterwards, Mr. Aris Mamasioulas, from the Managing Authority of the Region of Western Greece as well, presented the prospects of enhancing innovation in the SMEs of the manufacturing sector within the Region of Western Greece.

The concluding speech was made by Mr. Georgios Tzovolos, PSP associate, who spoke about the project Mini Europe and about the best practices implemented in Europe for the transfer of Innovation to enterprises. During his speech he underlined that “the most crucial thing for an enterprise is to understand the importance of innovation and that without innovation enterprises cannot become competitive”.

Picture 2: Mr. G. Tzovolos presenting “Good Practices in transferring Innovation to enterprises, the Project Mini Europe”

Before the conclusion of the session, the speakers and the audience had a constructive discussion on the basis of questions concerning the adoption by the enterprises of the suggested for the Region of Western Greece best practices and the expression of reservations contribution the contribution of the regional authorities and institutions to this effort. The speakers ensured the entrepreneurs that local authorities have already expressed their interest in contributing to the efforts undertaken within the framework of Mini Europe leaning on the european experience with a view to increase the competitiveness of local SMEs.









Pictures 3 & 4: The stand of Patras Science Park in the Forum for  Regional Development 2010

]]> http://interreg-minieurope.com/news/innovation-and-smes-in-patras/feed/ 0 Good Practice- “Innovative ICT applications to support the tourism sector of Ionian Islands” http://interreg-minieurope.com/good-practices/good-practice-innovative-ict-applications-to-support-the-tourism-sector-of-ionian-islands/ http://interreg-minieurope.com/good-practices/good-practice-innovative-ict-applications-to-support-the-tourism-sector-of-ionian-islands/#comments Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:07:51 +0000 Western Greece http://interreg-minieurope.com/?p=761 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PRACTICE

1. TITLE OF THE PRACTICE
Innovative ICT applications to support the tourism sector of Ionian Islands  “Digital Ionian Islands”

2. LOCATION OF GOOD PRACTICE

Greece (Ionian Islands)

3. PRECISE THEME/ISSUE TACKLED BY THE PRACTICE

Regional development is a vital issue towards the accomplishment of the Lisbon Strategy goals. According to these goals, Europe must be “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-driven economy by 2010″. Under this perspective, EU regions need to maintain their economic prosperity and their regional development.

Information Communication Technologies (ICT) can be a key factor for promoting economic growth. Especially for tourism economy-based regions, the adoption of ICT in the tourism sector, assists the produced outcomes, introduces innovation and facilitates the shift to a knowledge-based economy. However, it must be pointed out that the pure use of ICT is not a panacea, neither a simple process to follow. Economic performance can be resulted from a synchronised set of actions, aiming to create the right conditions for growth and innovation, and not from a single technology policy or institutional arrangement. The presented work had as a main aim to investigte how ICT can be used so as to boost tourism economy growth towards regional economic growth. In particular, the main assumption is that the tourism entrepreneurs have to develop and adapt ICT applications (e.g. promotion portals, e-presence, mobile services) tailored to their needs. The “Digital Ionian Islands” information environment, developed under the framework of Innovative Actions Program.

4. KEY WORDS

Information and communication technologies (ICT), information systems, travel, tourism, internet, world wide web (WWW), competitive advantage, e-services, m-services.

5. OBJECTIVES OF THE PRACTICE

Create of an advanced technological platform for the promotion of Region’s tourism and cultural product and for the provision of services to the tourism sector (so called “Digital Ionian Islands” action), in order to:

  • Provide effective information to potential travellers
  • Assist tourism entrepreneurs in the promotion of their offerings
  • Provide useful and updated information to entrepreneurs

6. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PRACTICE

The developed platform of information systems, includes several functionalities which are different, depending on the type of user. There exist three user groups having access to the system:

  • Tourism entrepreneurs
  • Content responsibles
  • General public (tourists)

For each of the user groups the following functionalities are provided:

A. General Public (tourists)

  • Search for cultural information (e.g. monuments, theatres etc)
  • Search for tourism information (e.g. hotels, restaurants, beaches etc)
  • Search for historical information
  • Search for thematic tourism possibilities (e.g. offerings and possibilities for agrotourism, mari-tourism etc)
  • Advanced search functionality (combinatorial queries, search for each island)
  • Virtual Reality subsets of information (e.g. gis routes, multimedia presentations etc)
  • Mobile services (specialised information provision through new generation mobile phones)

B. Tourism entrepreneurs

  • First level presentation of their company (easily searched by the tourists)
  • Advanced/specialised web presence of their company (easily searched by the tourists)
  • Promotion of specialised offerings (easily searched by the tourists)
  • E-consulting service (e.g. exhibitions, collaborations, programs, legislation etc)
  • Automatic created periodical useful information

C. Content responsibles

  • User friendly environment for the inclusion of information (tourism, cultural, historical) to the system
  • Levels of check and acceptance for the content uploaded by local entrepreneurs
  • Statistics concerning local companies and offerings

7. EVALUATION

There are 3 kinds of beneficiaries from the system actual usage. First of all tourists, who they can value such information environments. Within the last years, world widely, the usage of internet for the vacations organisation is increasing rapidly. The existence of an integrated and up-to-date environment providing all kinds of tourism information for the region of Ionian Islands will raise great interest.

Secondly, tourism entrepreneurs who have shown significant interest to the Digital Ionian Islands information environment can directly benefit from the services offered.  Until now, a significant raise of interest has been show. A high level amount of businessmen have submitted their interest to gain access and they have started uploading information. In the same time several information events have been organised in the Ionian Islands. In all these events the participation of local businessmen was very notable and the interest concerning the pilot use of the system and its future continuous presence was raised.

Last but not least, such projects are valuable tools for the regional administration in order to support their activities to further enhance their economy and promote the regional tourism and cultural product. The Regional Authority of Ionian Islands and the Regional Tourism Corporation consider the Digital Ionian Islands as a very important step towards Region’s economic growth and as a catalyst to help it achieve coherence with other EU regions.

8. OTHER RELEVANT INFORMATION

www.e-ionia.gr
http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/conferences/od2006/documentation.cfm?nmenu=25#

9. CONTACT

Regional Content Manager 
Chrysostomos Stylios 
Tel: +302610911553 
E-mail: stylios@psp.org.gr

Contact Person 1
John Garofalakis 
Tel: +302610960317 
E-mail: garofala@cti.gr

Contact Person 2
Andreas Koskeris 
Tel:+302610960429
E-mail: Koskeris@westgate.gr







]]> http://interreg-minieurope.com/good-practices/good-practice-innovative-ict-applications-to-support-the-tourism-sector-of-ionian-islands/feed/ 1 RURCED Romania – Ukraine Regional Center for Economic Development http://interreg-minieurope.com/good-practices/rurced-romania-ukraine-regional-center-for-economic-development/ http://interreg-minieurope.com/good-practices/rurced-romania-ukraine-regional-center-for-economic-development/#comments Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:04:00 +0000 Maramures http://minieurope.clienti.bazzmann.net/?p=81 The level of the economic relations between Romania and Ukraine is low, in spite of a very high potential. And this situation is exists at the national level and also at the local level. These trade exchanges are not only very low, but are mainly controlled by trade transactions with very high value, between “giant” companies. Any oscillation of a transaction from this mechanism may break the balance of the entire system.

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

]]> http://interreg-minieurope.com/good-practices/rurced-romania-ukraine-regional-center-for-economic-development/feed/ 0