Aarhus concretizes WP5 policy recommendations in existing strategies
WP 5 has come to a deeper understanding of the barriers and potentials regarding transnational innovation and cooperation. So far "The non questionaire" with 6 very specific questions, the findings from WP3 as well as the workshop in Groningen have supplied us with plenty of important input to the upcoming policy recommendations, which was further discussed at the TWD III in Kiel in December 2017. There is now a need to concretize the recommendations of which some will be quite concrete, whereas others will be on a much more general level.
Among these are recommendations in relation to elaborating a strategy – innovation and/or cluster strategy. Another is about strengthening the focus on funding in order to implement the strategies. And last but not least, there will be some very specific suggestions for concrete content (initiatives) in the strategies. To mention just a couple: encouraging the creation of networks, which can help partners find each other and open doors to create transnational cooperation. Another one is to raise the awareness of both the importance and added value of transnational cooperation - not only to businesses but also to the cities and regions. Finally, cities also play an active role in the innovation efforts, since they are both customers and affiliate innovation partners.
So far, these findings are to be elaborated further. As a first step, the City of Aarhus has now proposed to integrate the findings in the city’s recently published business plan, internationalization strategy and climate strategy. This will hopefully serve as an inspiration for other Northern Connection partners, as Aarhus will pinpoint some initiatives from these strategies, which will exemplify our findings from WP5. It is expected that the results of this work will be available at the TWD IV in Scotland in June 2018.