EURICE Welcomes New Saarland Innovation Strategy and Joins Panel Discussion
On 4 June 2024, Saarland's minister of economics, Jürgen Barke, officially introduced the new strategy for research and innovation 2024-2030 during an Innovation Summit held in Saarbrücken.
Barke declared: “With the new innovation strategy, we are presenting a collaborative roadmap for the successful transformation of the Saarland. We are dedicated to aligning and cross-linking our exceptional research landscape even more closely with the Saar economy, a joint endeavour that promises mutual growth. Our focus is clearly on implementing measures that enable companies to derive added value from research results.”
The strategy is the outcome of a co-creation process involving more than 100 actors from the local research and innovation landscape, including the participation of EURICE. As State Secretary Elena Yorgova-Ramanauskas underlined: “Launching this process and bringing all of these experts together has been a major achievement in itself. We will continue this open, participatory exchange with the experts to give fresh impulses for innovation processes and follow up on new developments.”
Promoting intelligent specialisation, the strategy identifies key areas that hold particular potential for Saarland's research and economic landscape:
- Digitalization & AI
- Sustainable Smart Production & New Mobility
- Life Science & Material Science
Each area covers a set of concrete measures that will be jointly implemented by a group of experts. In addition, a fourth group deals with overarching issues of innovation management and technology transfer. The strategy’s objectives are to be achieved, in particular, by establishing holistic innovation ecosystems.
The Summit was rounded off by a panel discussion, assembling some of the experts who participated in the development process. Joining the conversation, EURICE’s Managing Director Jörg Scherer highlighted the importance of international collaboration: “We need to see our local innovation ecosystems as part of a dynamic research and innovation landscape in Europe–or even beyond. Fruitful collaboration and trustful open innovation processes on regional, national and European levels are key to ensuring sustainable growth and impactful knowledge valorisation processes.”
The new innovation strategy has been approved by the European Commission and is an important prerequisite for benefiting from the so-called European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), one of the EU's main financial instruments for strengthening regional labour markets and economies and boosting cross-border cooperation.
Download the full Innovation Strategy here.
