CAMINO

Climate Adaptation Mainstreaming through Innovation

CAMINO reconciled economic growth (Europe2020) and climate adaptation. It delivered innovative governance approaches and business cases that supported mainstreaming climate adaptation in local investment projects and product/service development.

CAMINO built upon results of MARE, SKINT, SAWA (NSR), FRC (NWE) & BaltCica (BSR) and enriched its 5 regional partnerships with industry and (inter)national policy makers. This enabled implementation of 10 local pilots, and the development and dissemination of transnational Future Perspectives for innovative sustainable growth in the North Sea Region. 

CCC

Creative City Challenge

CCC aimed to build and implement an integrated evidence-based strategy for cities to strengthen their innovative capacity. This was done by means of a methodology of joint development and pilot testing of new tools and instruments in the fields of skills development, business cooperation and the development of urban creative clusters. CCC focused on the catalyst role of creative industries in building and strengthening the innovative capacity of these urban economies through the use of a transnational triple helix of government, education and business.

Project outcomes included instruments for skills development for entrepreneurs, masters’ classes and a network for North Sea Region business cooperation. Urban showcases demonstrated instruments on how to establish creative clusters.

CCC was also represented in the DANS Cluster.

ClimaFruit

Future proofing the North Sea berry fruit industry in times of climate change

ClimaFruit established transnational cooperation between research institutions and the North Sea Region berry fruit industry in order to maximize the implementation of innovative technologies. Thereby, the project secured, sustained and grew the economic value of the industry under by developing a world leading Berry Fruit Cluster in the North Sea Region to ensure investment opportunities, sustainable use of resources and the production of healthy food.

The project produced methods to reduce the carbon footprint of the industry, superior plant material and future production strategies better suited to the North Sea Region climate, as well as a virtual Soft Fruit Climate Change and Environment Centre, ensuring the continuous uptake of methods by the berry fruit industry.

CLUSTER: DANS Cluster

Digital Agenda for the North Sea

The DANS cluster connected three projects funded under the Priority 1: Creative City Challenge (CCC), Smart Cities and E-CLIC. These three projects combined their expertise, contacts and networks and thereby built a base upon which the 'Digital Agenda for Europe' (DAE) could be implemented within the North Sea Region.

The project focused on the link between the local and regional strategies to the DAE, identified implementation barriers and pointed at synergies. This led to a number of strategic outputs (e.g. an implementation strategy, the 'DANS model', 'Good Practices Guide') and dissemination activities by modern means of communication.

DANS ON

Digital Agenda for the North Sea: Orientation towards New Innovation

The DANS ON project aimed at disseminating how the DANS Model stimulates innovation in the North Sea Region by demonstrating how the DANS Model has been applied and implemented in practice. The DANS Model was a Quadruple Helix model that is especially suitable to innovation processes where citizens’ needs are central.

The partnership communicated the story of the DANS Model via a range of media channels and showed how regions in the North Sea Region can adapt the model to increase society's capacity for innovation. DANS ON consisted of partners from Sweden, Germany, Norway, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

E-CLIC

European Collaborative Innovation Centres for broadband media services

E-CLIC aimed to develop research and innovation networks related to broadband media services in order to stimulate the commercialisation of the region’s knowledge base and encourage the development of new employment opportunities.

E-CLIC aimed to enhance the provision of broadband services that were perceived as the engine for stimulating economic growth and employment. A ‘cluster' of eight Broadband Media Centres was established to create North Sea Region competence, increase critical mass in the sector and promote cooperation between businesses, research and education organisations.

ERIP

European Regions for Innovative Productivity

The project identified an increasing pressure on EU manufacturers to be more efficient and innovative in their processes. The cause of this pressure was identified by the project as increased production capacity in low-cost economies and increased innovation and level of sophistication of supply chains in high-cost economies.

The main problems undermining the competitiveness of SMEs were limited knowledge of lean/agile techniques, limited understanding of regional governments, lack of knowledge transfer to SMEs, and a lack of resources amongst SMEs. The method applied was to use a regional model to improve manufacturing efficiency as the initial core of the ERIP model, which was subsequently transferred across the North Sea Region.

GreenGrowing

Reduced energy use in the North Sea Region horticultural greenhouse industry

GreenGrowing strengthened the innovation capacity and competitiveness in the North Sea Region horticultural greenhouse industry and led to at least a 10% reduction of CO2 emissions.

The project combined a better climate control in the greenhouses, an improved use of novel greenhouse techniques and the use of climate tolerant plant types with ICT tools. Supported by intensive information strategies at the business level, GreenGrowing delivered cost savings and ensured sustainable production. The project created transnational networks linking SMEs, grower organizations and political bodies to transfer innovation and deliver a lasting impact.

IFP

Innovative Forsight Planning for Business Development

IFP established a transnational framework of cooperation to systematically tackle challenges regarding the competitiveness of regions in the North Sea Region in the global economy. Foresight Planning was used as a method, not only to link regions and selected clusters transnationally and plan for joint actions in the future, but also to find solutions tailor-made for the regions facing challenges related to the shift of the industrial base (decline, transition, and growth).

The project designed forward-looking strategies and concrete action plans based on applied Foresight Planning processes to build capacity for innovation. The public sector was considered a key partner for facilitating the processes of innovation, internationalisation, and creation of critical mass in the North Sea Region.

NMU

Northern Maritime University

The NMU project built on the broad range of knowledge and expertise in the North Sea area, which was being harnessed within a common and lasting transnational network of universities. The Northern Maritime University directly addressed the needs of the maritime industry: To better prepare maritime business managers to cope with growing maritime traffic, port development, and rising environmental challenges by developing multidisciplinary and internationally oriented qualifications at Bachelors and Masters level.

NMU worked towards establishing an Area of Research and Innovation for the maritime industry in the North Sea Region, contributing towards the Lisbon strategy to create a more effective maritime business sector and an enhanced competitiveness of the maritime sector.

NMU was also represented in the MTC cluster.

North Sea Supply Connect

North Sea Supply Connect

Small markets in the North Sea Region and SME access barriers to European supply markets were key problems addressed by the project. They cause competitive disadvantages for Northern SMEs and their regions compared to suppliers and regions involved in large regions. If SMEs stuck to prosperity of traditional regional markets, major markets would be at risk. This risk was further aggravated by the ongoing global economic crisis, which challenged regional economies to join forces with partners at an interregional level in order to regain competitiveness and to master structural change.

NorthseaSupply adressed them with a Company Register and Training Measures with a SME-oriented partnership.

NSSP

North Sea Screen Partnership

NSSP sought to tap the potential of the creative industries (i.e. the film industry) to promote innovation and growth in the North Sea Region and increase the region's competitiveness in a global context. Transnational cooperation was concentrated on common challenges, such as marketing, financing and SME support.

The project aimed to tackle issues such as fragmented national markets inhibiting critical mass creation (developing economies of scale), lack of coherence and coordination of actors and actions across the North Sea Region, and loss of talents in more peripheral areas.

Opening Up (OUP)

Opening Up

The Opening Up project opened up new opportunities for businesses and governments to develop transformative services through the adoption of open data and social networking approaches.

It built upon the increasingly large amounts of valuable data created by the development of social networks as part of the shift towards open government to create new tools, devise new approaches and build the skills citizens, businesses and governments need to deliver radically different services, e-government and businesses in the North Sea Region.

Through this work, the project promoted significant new ways of developing, adopting and using ICT applications across the North Sea Region.

POWER cluster

Developing the North Sea Offshore Wind Power Cluster

As a direct successor of the IIIB POWER project, POWER cluster was centred on the development of a strong Offshore Wind Industry (OWI) cluster in the North Sea Region. Core activities included a strengthened stakeholder and business-to-business network, energy grid reinforcement across the North Sea Region, developed skills training courses (including higher education and addressing unemployment) and raising acceptance among the wider public as a basis for wider roll-out of wind energy installations.

POYO

The Port is Yours

POYO focused on maintenance processes, i.e. preventing problems instead of solving them, in order to increase the efficiency in the production process of the ports in the North Sea Region and thereby to enlarge competitiveness and innovation opportunities.

POYO strengthened and empowered networks to create an international cluster in the North Sea Region, thereby laying the basis for knowledge transfer on innovative maintenance techniques and the development of an EU standard towards certification of all maintenance techniques.

As a main result, four physical Centres of Excellence brought together industry/SME and vocational education to bundle knowledge and experience on maintenance issues. An action plan and a handbook fostered European certification on maintenance courses.

SKINT

North Sea Skills Integration and New Technologies

The project focused on the integration and creation of knowledge through various methods for empowering water in interdisciplinary urban development and planning processes. The project had significant relevance for national and EU policy evaluation and it supported the implementation of the Floods Directive and the Waterframework Directive.

The project developed a SKINT Water portal, which provided end-users from the national and regional level with an active source of information for online training courses, including an effective web-communication tool.

Smart Cities

Smart Cities

Smart Cities aimed to create an innovation network between governments and academia in six countries to promote excellence in the domain of e-services (development and take-up) in order to set a new standard for e-service delivery in the whole North Sea Region. The transnational working method (pooling expertise and joint model development) was proposed to equip decision-makers to achieve further innovation in the delivery of e-enabled public services.

Smart Cities was also represented in the DANS cluster.