The Mediterranean Partner Countries (MPC) in view of the perspective of the Free Trade Area with the European Union, forthcoming in 2010, and faced with the growing phenomenon of globalization, are urged to clearly establish a strategy for competition in this new, challenging and probably irreversible framework.
There is a need to identify the key industrial sectors, especially affected by the global competition, trying to make them new sources of job creation and regional competitiveness.
The European Union through its INCO-MED Programmes intends to develop an action plan to help MPC foster and enhance innovation and competitiveness in their local economies using and exploiting the results of scientific research and development. Like in the conceptualisation of the support policies for innovation and competitiveness in Europe , the main actors to deal with, in such a complex set of policies, are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The situation in the EU sees 25.3 million non-primary private enterprises, 99.8% of whom are craft and SMEs. Crafts and small businesses employ more than 53% of Europe 's workforce and are responsible for half of Europe 's total turnover. Small businesses and craft enterprises are therefore the rule in Europe and not the exception, being a key source of jobs and a breeding ground for business ideas. They are the main driver for innovation and employment as well as social and local integration. This situation can be similar, in some respects, to that one of MPC, being the group of SMEs almost the “backbone” of local economies.
If this is the framework, then the focus of public policies for innovation and competitiveness must be put, on the one hand, on creating the best environment possible for these SMEs to compete in a global view and with word best references, on the other hand, on providing them with the right instruments to access to EU knowledge, EU-Med cooperation and funding. This is why instruments specifically dedicated to SMEs may represent very useful tools, for these economies in the future INCO-Med activity in FP7.
Co-operative and Collective Research Projects, funded by the EU Framework Programme for RTD, are the best example of this strategy, trying to involve in the same project SMEs and research institutes, universities, research laboratories, research companies, etc..., which should finally generate new and economically useful knowledge, at disposal of the research institutes as well as of the SMEs.
The proposed methodology for an action plan to foster Innovation and Competitiveness in Mediterranean Countries consists of four main milestones:
1. Key sectors identification
- Explore the field. Know and analyse the key sectors with the best potential for job creation and for competing at least on a European scale. Identify key actors, establish relationships with them, understand them and their heterogeneity, and most of all identify and organise their common needs and interests.
- Their common and relevant needs, in the view of innovation and broad competitiveness, will determine the priorities for economic public policies, in a bottom-up approach.
- Their common and relevant interests will act as glue keeping together the critical mass of actors involved in the process.
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Innovation will be important in all industries, from high to low tech. Policy makers must not be seduced by the glamorous industries.
- Benchmark with foreign competitors will help develop that global view which allows local actors to learn from best practices, tend to excellence, and compete at an international level.
- A big effort should be oriented towards the building up of the most durable and value-adder asset: the attractiveness of the local sector and economy to foreign investments.
2. Building supporting structures
- Invest in education and training of experts able to deal with international (and EU in particular) opportunities for innovation.
- Given the insufficient number of qualified human resources, to invest in ICTs is a priority, in order to create, develop and use IST infrastructures for communication and interaction with SMEs, and to increase the local capacity to transmit also not codified but electronically transmissible knowledge.
- Well understand the link between Research and Technological Development and Innovation. Shift from a traditional view of the innovation process as a linear one, with R&D activities like only input, to a systemic approach, considering all the relevant functions and activities as potential generator of innovation, and knowledge as the main object of the interactions.
3. Definition of instruments
- Financial instruments. In a first stage, being aware that an effective innovation-friendly fiscal environment cannot be created easily, taxation policies should be designed considering their potential effects in stimulating innovation.
- Instruments for actions: grants, projects funded by bilateral and multilateral international cooperation, networks, CRAFT projects, etc...
- Enhance and make the most of International Cooperation with specialised organisations from EU Member States supporting Innovation and Competitiveness of SMEs.
4. Disseminating and increasing awareness
- Develop a local "culture of innovation", insisting in creating framework conditions conductive to entrepreneurship. - Develop slowly but firmly a vibrant environment and common awareness of the importance of innovation and competitiveness for the human wellbeing of population.
- Show the opportunities that economic dynamism can offer to improve life conditions.
- Foster emulation and imitation of best practices, as a way for strengthening positive values in the society.
- Encourage networking and cooperation among firms and research institutes, mostly using as a reference and a practical tool, in a first stage, European Programmes
(Rodriguez, R, Pasimeni, P)
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