Forward WP2 diagnosis : What are the main outcomes ?

Through WP2 activities, each outermost region performed a 360° diagnosis to understand and improve their participation in frameworks programmes and also increase their research and innovation capacities, through a regional action plan and also a joint strategy.

At the very begining of the Forward project, the consortium co-designed with the help of Nexa an original and science-based methodology (refer to article ” FORWARD project : why another diagnosis ?”) to analyze Outermost Regions’ participation in the Framework programmes and identify the barriers and levers to improve their respective situation.

Thereafter, during 9 months, the 9 regional communities were mobilised to establish a factual state of play of the participation in FP and to complete a thorough analysis of the 4 factors which prevent them to fully take part to the European Research and Innovation Area :

• Connection to the major networks
• Regional innovation systems performance
• Regional organizations’ resources and strategies
• Individual capacities and decisions

Based on this analysis, each region built its territorial diagnosis and action plan to increase FP Participation in the next programmation period.

9 regional diagnosis and a comparative analysis

As a result, the diagnosis has shown that:

• ORs are H2020 players, working on key themes for the European Union,but present so far a limited participation.
• there is a high heterogeneity among ORs, some being active and successful for years, other remaining on the margins of the program.
• but there is no fatality, things can change very fast, in few years, some regions having improved rapidly and significantly their level of participation.
• 3 families of factors are very decisive : public policies, connection strategies to the major ERA networks, stakeholders’ behavior, notably their willingness to engage in these projects.
• there is a need for a tailor-made approach for each region and for each thematic
•  and other key findings which can be found here : WP2_keyfindings

9 regional roadmaps and a OR joint strategy

Each region also elaborated a regional roadmap with their stakeholders focusing on the most urgent and powerful levers to activate in order to increase strongly and in a sustainable way their participation in the European framework programmes.

During a mutual learning event in Brussels, the nine regions met in order to identify the potential of synergies between regions and build a joint strategy based on :

• A common AMBITION – Inclusive growth through knowledge-based economy
• A common VISION – Achieve excellence in the OR’s R&I ecosystem
• A common MISSION – « Foster political will and synergies between OR’s to turn them into global resilience living labs through the integration into international value chains and increased participation in European research and innovation area.”
• Common VALUES – Synergies, Integration and Participation in respect of the heterogeneities of ORs

The nine detailed diagnoses including regional roadmaps and the joint strategy are available here .

From WP2 data to the OR webplatform and Forward open dashboards

To achieve WP2 diagnoses, regions have produced a large amount of data. These data have been used by Nexa to build very useful tools to increase ORs’ visibility and recognition :

– the OR plateforme : https://forward-h2020.eu/

– and 2 open-data dashboards on

• R&I indicators : https://public.tableau.com/profile/nexa#!/vizhome/ORRIDashboard/History
• FP participation : https://public.tableau.com/profile/nexa#!/vizhome/ORFPDashboard/Home

More to follow here :  the Forward open dashboards

Authors : Philippe Holstein & Evelyne Tarnus, Nexa