EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - Regio Stars Awards 2008

Regio Stars Awards 2008 - the finalists

Introduction

Innovating regions and the good practices they share are key to improving competitiveness, increasing growth and promoting jobs across Europe. Innovation and applied innovative practices enable Europe's businesses to stay ahead in a globalised environment. It is in this context that we have launched RegioStars, DG Regional Policy's Awards for innovative projects supported through EU Cohesion Policy. These are annual awards that aim to identify and publicise the best regional innovative projects in order to promote the exchange of good practices across Europe.

Problem

European Commissioner Danuta Hübner explained that the main objective of RegioStars 2008 was to identify within the 268 regions of the EU good innovative practices in regional development. The awards also aim to highlight original and innovative projects that could serve to attract and inspire other regions.

Description

RegioStars 2008 is the first of these annual awards. The four categories in this year's competition are: "Supporting Clusters and Business Networks", " Technology transfer from research institutes to SMEs", "Energy efficiency and renewable energies", and "Environmental technologies". We have received 71 eligible applications from 18 Members States. 26 of these applications have been short listed by the jury and written up as case studies to be shared with Europe's 268 regions. This booklet contains summaries of the case studies.

Results

In total, 71 eligible applications were submitted by 18 Member States, with 26 applications being short listed by an independent jury. DG Regional Policy has worked with these 26 projects, with the aim of producing a case study for publication on the Inforegio website.

EU involvement

The Awards for Innovative Projects was launched by DG Regio Commissioner Hübner in March 2007 during the “Regions For Economic Change” conference.

The RegioStars 2008 jury of 6 members was chaired by Mr Pasqual Maragall i Mira (former President of the Generalitat de Catalunya and former Mayor of Barcelona). The other members were:

Mr Martti Huoilila, Senior Technology Advisor, TEKES, Finland.
Mrs Marjorie Jouen, Member of Cabinet of President Delebarre, Committee of the Regions.
Mrs Natalija Kazlauskien•, Director DG Regional Policy, European Commission.
Mrs Elzbieta Ksiazek, Project Manager, Innovating Regions of Europe Network.
Mr Örjan Sölvell, Dean of the MBA programme, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden.

Project start date

/06/2008

Links

Click here to visit the Regio Stars website

Click here to read about the projects of the 26 finalists of the 2008 Regio Stars Awards (PDF, Eng, 1.51 MB)

Document type

case

Themes

Urban Policy > Economy knowledge & employment

Keywords

Research & innovation

Institutional characteristics
Supranational organisation