1. Blue Economy and Regions
A Perspective from Portugal
Ricardo Migueis 1

2. Contents Why is Blue Economy important
Regional priorities and funding instruments
Past present and future – some questions for debate

3. Why is the Blue Economy important
Why is the Blue Economy important? Sectoral economic value and employment ( )

4. Why is the Blue Economy important
Why is the Blue Economy important? Economic value as % GDP and Employment

5. Why is the Blue Economy important? Blue Growth in Europe - Drivers

6. Why is the Blue Economy important? Blue Economy in Europe and Portugal

7. Why is the Blue Economy important? Blue Economy in Europe and Portugal

8. Regional priorities and Funding Instruments Blue Economy in the Regional PrioritiesBE BE BE

9. Funding instruments European budget distribution
How does this translate into Blue Economy opportunities?
National and regional operational programes
National thematic programes
European centrally managed programes
EAFRD – Rural developmnet
CF - Cohesion Fund
ESF – European Social Fund
ERDF – Rgional developmnet
EMFF – Maritime and Fisheries Fund

10. Regional priorities and Funding Instruments Blue Economy in Europe and Portugal
Instruments for Blue Economy investment
Structural Funds
State budget
Others
Private investment/Commercial banques
Horizon 2020 / COSME / LIFE / Etc
EEA Grants
European Investment Bank

11. Main challenges identified by key stakeholders National and International
Imbalance between the research ability and entrepreneurship capacity
Difficult national business environment and contraction of internal demand, placing enterprises in the position of having to find external markets while facing challenges in terms of efficiency (productivity and competitiveness) and financing
Barriers to innovation activities related to the associated costs, funding and financing and to market conditions
Deficiency of qualified human resources in the industrial sector – lack of motivation from companies
Limited collaboration between the private sector and other actors within the national scientific system (and sometimes also among the actors of the whole value chain)
Limited number of patent applications
Limited use of organised forums/platforms for debate and insufficient involvement of stakeholders in supporting the design of national policies and programmes
Mobilization of the society for bio-industries & bio-based products

12. Innovation systems for the Blue Economy Role of different institutions
Higher Education Institutions
Research Infrastructures
Research and Technology Organizations
Industry

13. Challenges - questions
Are we bettering the capacity of traditional sectors and launching new emergent knowledge based areas into business?
Are we making the most out of regional and national capacities and integrating value chains at international level?
In a new dynamic of public policy focused on blue growth, what reflections do you have for the post-2020 policy and instruments?

14. National Innovation Agency
Thank you!
Ricardo Migueis
National Innovation Agency

15. National Roadmapping and Evaluation
Food for thought
- Not pleading for synchronization per se into optimizing chances to feed into the pipeline;
Europe will fail if the number of small and medium size Infrastructures in many regions decrease in favour of small big infrastructures concentrated in some regions;
National roadmapping makes no sense without institutional and regional gap analysis;
European RI roadmapping is not effective if it is not grounded in national roadmapping;
Higher Education Institutions and regions play a crucial role at the level of design, concept development and termination phase;
Having a critical look at what exists in a region and country (as well as within big institutions that host several infrastructures) is crucial – deciding to change, what to capacitate, merge or terminate

16. Funding instruments Food for thought
There is no science fits all models – need to be flexible
Every infrastructure is funded by a mix of funding instruments
ERA will fail if we don’t have a comprehensive understading of the infrastructure funding instruments at the diferente levels and players (RTOs vs RIs, etc)
Any funding instruments discussions must be sensitive to the perspective of the projects/infrastructure to be funded (important to look at the needs/costs in different phases of the lifecycle of an infrastructure)
The most interesting funding instruments are underexploited (i.e. crowdfunding by society and Open Innovation funding by industries)

17. Business Models
Business models = business cases – it links the following three things:
Access Policy + User Strategy + Funding
Access/Services Policy (automatic access vs review and participation in the development of the R&I activity) – User Strategy (need to define use groups – members of the Consortium vs external users / engage in joint analysis need / seek commitment and engage in the strategy design) – Funding
(desenhar modelo – triangulo)

18. Business Models + Plans
Food for thought
Considerable balance is needed between ensuring basic infrastructure (basic funding / membership fee / stakeholder investment) vs researcher / company driven-competition (access/services fees and making it eligible in the received grants)
No model fits all in this balance – it depends on the case (type of infrastructure, single-sited vs distributed, etc)
Any business plan fails if the business model is not adequate
What are you selling to whom and why, under which (financial) conditions?