FILA project aims to enhance SMEs competitiveness and cross border cooperation, by strengthening the link between research and business, through the creation of cross border ‘Fertilization and Innovation Labs in Agro-food’ (FILA Labs). The sharing of innovative solutions resulting from the Operational Groups – European Innovation Partnership and other forms of partnership will be favored by the creation of regional networks and a cross border FILA network.
Innovation Labs models, as sharing and contamination environments for answering to enterprises needs and research results (collection and analysis) have been mapped through this activity at the international level (European Union, North and South America, Australia, Asia, Africa, and Middle East). Partners have collected information on more than 50 Operating Groups-EIP and similar organizations in the 3 geographical areas (Apulia, Albania, Montenegro). At present, the main models for innovation and technological transfer for enterprises that they mapped during this process (innovation support organization – ISO) have different forms: incubators, enterprises accelerators, ILO (Industrial Liaison Office) and TTO (Technology Transfer Office), contamination labs, Technological Parks.
From this mapping process a Report resulted, presenting the existing good experiences of the Innovation Lab models at international level. The Report aims at analyzing these best practices of the innovation lab models at the international level to define an adequate model of establishing and functioning of Fertilization Innovation Labs in Agri-food in program area (Italy – Albania - Montenegro).
The mapping process has been developed through different steps:
The first step foresees an Internal and online DESK research of Innovation Labs models;
The second step foresees a Selection of innovation models for the further data collection process;
The third step foresees the data collection process through a predefined questionnaire divided in 5 subsections: Governance, Assets, Approach, Relations and Networks, and Results;
The fourth step consist in the Report production, by Tehnopolis in cooperation with CIHEAM Bari, finalized to the drafting of FILA model, analyzing the best practices at international level.
The Operating Groups (OG) of the European Innovation Partnership is an interactive tool to spread innovations in agri-food sector. It involves all the actors of the innovation chain able, in a specific context, to find solutions to specific problems or to promote specific opportunities. The planning is based on bottom up approach through methods of co-generation and co-participation. The analysis of formal and informal OG present on the program area provides two important kind of information: the list of active and available to work in team innovation chain actors and the innovative solutions recently developed to respond to specific needs.
In Puglia, mapping process included 30 OGs from Italy, 14 from Montenegro, and 10 from Albania.