ACCESS (ACCelerating regional competitivenESS and sector-based excellence through innovation management tools and techniques) is our latest project within the CENTRAL EUROPEAN PROGRAMME. 

The lead partner of the project is the South Transdanubian Regional Innovation Agency Nonprofit Ltd. 

ACCESS is implemented by 11 partners coming from Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia who have been brought together in their common interest in a new level of innovation development that will focus on the following 2 specific facets:

• Which are the tools and techniques of regional innovation management that might be useful to improve innovation capacities?
  
  
• Which potentials might be hidden in a sector-based focus for innovation management?

The partners will start with the knowledge audit and integration that aims at investigating and understanding regional innovation capabilities in terms of sectoral specifics. Then they will analyse and integrate the cumulated knowledge in common understandings and through this they will create a knowledge base of sector-based innovation.

Furthermore, it is of high importance to share knowledge about innovation management tools and techniques. For this purpose a transnational innovation management training will be organised enabling selected employees of each partner – who will act as “internal peers” during the pilot application – to deal with innovation management related matters.

Basing on these 2 sides of knowledge generated by the project and also necessary for the pilot application (sector-based information on the one side, innovation management tools and techniques on the other side), the partners will elaborate a transnational methodical tool (a peer review methodology) to assess sector-based innovation potentials and capabilities in the regions.

The tool will be also tested in the participating countries by 3 peer review groups focusing on one of the selected sectors each, and transferred in the frame of a pilot service to other regions and/or sectors.

In addition, 3 selected regions specific aspects of the strategic implementation plans will be also implemented: In Slovenia an innovative “food plain” will be set up to make the sector competitive and correspondent to EU regulations, in Central Hungary biotechnology facilitation will take place with the focus on the establishment of a transnational cluster while in Upper Silesia a double mentoring system for technology transfer will be installed.