1. Juliet Williams Chairman South West of England Regional Development Agency 29 October 2008 Regional Action Plans for Innovation Development and Enterprise European Regional Development Fund

2. What is RAPIDE? ›Improving how regions support and stimulate innovation as a key driver of competitiveness ›Focus on bringing innovation to market more quickly ›managing risk ›financing ›effective partnerships ›Influencing future policy and programmes on how innovation should be supported

3. A new kind of network ›Capitalisation: transferring best practice ›Fast track under Regions for Economic Change ›Supported by 5 Commission DGs, including Enterprise and Industry; Regional Policy; Information Society and Media; Research; and, Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Oppportunities ›A partnership of 11 new and old Member States

4. From idea to network ›June 2007 ›‘Beyond Best Practice’ Conference in Cornwall, South West England ›Autumn 2007 ›12 regions develop proposal for capitalisation network (Interreg IVC) ›January 2008 ›Proposal submitted to Commission ›May 2008 ›Secretariat approves proposal, subject to final conditions ›RAPIDE identified as fast track project ›September 2008 ›RAPIDE kicks off

5. Key principles for RAPIDE ›‘Seeing is believing’ › Hands-on peer review ›‘Beyond best practice’ › Implementing lessons learnt through our mainstream funding programmes ›‘Innovation, Development and Enterprise’ › Influencing the approach to innovation across Europe

6. What will RAPIDE deliver? ›Hands-on experience of other regions’ work ›Transferrable, and interrogated, good practice ›12 peer-reviewed regional Action Plans ›Policy recommendations around bringing innovation to market more quickly ›More effective support for innovation in partner regions (…and beyond)

7. Challenges for RAPIDE ›MA engagement ›how can we ensure our MAs are involved from the beginning and will agree to implement the Action Plans we develop? ›Influencing mainstream funds ›10m euros of mainstream structural fund money per region by 2013. Is this achievable?

8. Looking forward ›October 2008 - RAPIDE launch in Torun, Poland ›December 2008 - First Working Summit (Effective Partnerships) in Wales ›February 2009 - Second Working Summit (Financing Innovation) in Western Greece ›May 2009 - Third Working Summit (Managing Risk) in South West England ›July 2009 - Mid-term review in Örebro, Sweden ›July 2009 – June 2010 - Partners develop Action Plans in working groups, with all plans peer-reviewed as they develop ›July 2010 - Final conference in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany

9. For more information RAPIDE:www.rapidenetwork.eu Interreg IVC:www.interreg4c.net DG Regio:http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/index_en.htm European Regional Development Fund Juliet Williams Chairman South West of England Regional Development Agency 29 October 2008