PROJECT TOTAL ERDF ERDF URL - WEB ADRESS POPULATION HALLE-ACRONYM BUDGET CONTRIBUTION OBJECTIVE L RTP Halle-Leipzig-Dessau RIS.Halle-Leipzig-Dessau.org ECU 400,000 50% 1 2.7 million
OBJECTIVES AND CONTEXT STEERING COMMITTEE
The RIS-region covers the Halle/Dessau region in Chair: Minister for Environment and Spatial Planning Saxony-Anhalt and the Leipzig region in Saxony. It in Saxony-Anhalt; is widely known as the “Mitteldeutscher Wirtschaft- Deputy Chair: Chief Executive of the County of sraum” in which today more than 2.7 million inhab- Leipzig; itants live and which is currently going through a major transformation process. Indeed, the regional Members representing: authorities are keen to transfer their experience of the Chief Executives of the county councils Halle, this relatively successful restructuring process to Leipzig and Dessau; Presidents of the six universi- countries of Eastern Europe. The most important ties in the region;; mayors of Halle, Leipzig, Dessau;; industries represented in the region are chemicals, Chief Executives of the Chamber of Commerce and machinery, mining, building and food. Since German Industry of Halle and Leipzig; representatives of the unification over 60 major investments of more than regional ministries; technology Transfer and Scien- 50 MECU in total have been made in the region, tific institutions; trade Union representatives; major mainly in the chemical sector. The major competi- Companies and SME`s. tive advantages of the region are its infrastructure, its human capital, its favourable wage cost and the DEVELOPING A REGIONAL relatively high productivity of its companies. The INNOVATION PARTNERSHIP objectives of the RIS can be described as follows: After encountering some problems in the first stage • changing the emphasis of regional development of the RIS exercise, the EU co-financed RTP proj- strategies by promoting innovation as a central ect, the local and regional actors came together at issue for regional development; the end of 1996 to re-launch the RIS with a new partnership including all relevant regional and eco- • increasing participation of public and private nomic actors. This relaunched programme con- spending in the promotion of innovation; tained four new features not present in the initial • linking up regional players and creating interna- RTP: emphasis on sectoral actions, compliance with tional competitive advantages; the political framework of actions of the Länder of Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, closer co-operation • reinforcing participation of SME in innovation and with the European Commission, increased collabo- regional development; ration with other RIS regions, in particular RTP Lim- • making innovation a central theme of future struc- burg (the Netherlands). tural policies in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt; A Steering Committee was formed to oversee the • develop – sector based – centres of expertise on whole exercise. To develop concrete project pro- the basis of working groups made out of indus- posals and to select specific action lines, several sec- trialists and other leading economic actors tor based networks of individual firms were set up, (biotechnology group, plastics industries); in which companies, local and regional actors as well as research institutions developed joint initiatives. • strengthen European co-operation in the fields of The Institut für Strukturpolitik und Wirtschafts- innovation promotion and technology transfer. förderung, founded in 1992, has taken over the co- ordination of the RIS and received the support from all the major stakeholders in the region. Due to its extensive and well established contacts in the region as well as its contribution in terms of research and supporting activities to the restructuring process of the local economy; the institute was considered to be best placed to take on the job.
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FIRST RESULTS AND PILOT PROJECTS NETWORK OF PLASTIC PRODUCERS IN CENTRAL GERMANY To date, the RIS exercise has produced a series of tangible results including: In this network, 80 firms and institutions collaborate in 5 working groups. Several clusters of production • over 250 participating firms and institutions in were created on the basis of this intensive collabo- sector based centres of expertise; ration. In the context of these newly created net- • the strengthening of the regional partnership; works, 10 projects were developed, out of which 5 are currently supported by the Government of Sax- • the selection of two projects sponsored by the ony-Anhalt. One of these projects has now engaged RTP programme. The projects ‘Media-Kom in a collaboration with the Province of Limburg (NL). Leipzig’ and ‘Electronic Commerce’ were selected in a national competition of projects; The aim of this cross-border partnership is to initi- ate an international research and development proj- • launching of 25 common projects between Sax- ect. In the context of this particular network, a ony and Saxony-Anhalt (to date 10 projects are research award has been set up (Prof. J. Nelles being subsidised); award for innovative research in the field of plastic • creation of working relationships with other RIS manufacturing technics). regions;
• development of a process of quality control in the chemical industry.
IMPACT ON REGIONAL POLICY AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES
The regional governments of Saxony and Saxony- Anhalt have agreed to collaborate in order to ascer- tain to what extent EU Structural Funds within the next programming period (2000-2006) could be used for the promotion of innovation. It was also felt that a successful RIS Strategy would need an on- going innovation management which would have to be based on a strong co-ordination between the various existing networks of industrial expertise. In the light of their common experience, both regional governments have agreed to support the on-going and future RIS exercise, irrespective of any further financial support from the Commission.
¨ CONTACT
Dr. Gunthard Bratzke Institut für Strukturpolitik und Wirtschaftsförderung Halle-Leipzig e.V. Heinrich Heine Str. 10 D-06114 Halle Tel: +49.345.521360 Fax: +49.345.5170706 E-mail: [email protected] Helmut Müller Chief Executive of the RKW Ledenweg 2 D-01445 Radebeul Tel.: +49.351.832230 Fax: +49.351.8322400 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.rkw-sachsen.de
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