RELOS3’s first Long-Term Visit recently took place in Emmen, the Netherlands. RELOS3 is a five-year EU-project on smart specialisation strategies deployment with a local perspective. It unites institutions from Sabadell (Spain – lead partner), Bologna (Italy), Wielkopolska (Poland), Emmen (The Netherlands), Tartu (Estonia) and Malta.
Long-term visits are a specially designed activity within the project to deeply analyse potential transfer of good practices. These good practices came about during the baseline study and thematic events that were organised in the previous 18 months.
Focus on Green Chemistry and Tourism and Leisure
Emmen showed their approaches in two important sectors: Green Chemistry and Tourism and Leisure. Through company visits, meetings, presentations and interviews with key stakeholders in the Emmen area, the visitors gained not only insights, but also presented feedback on Emmen’s approach.
The feedback caused Emmen’s Vice Mayor Bouke Arends to remark: “If you really want to get something done, you better do it together: you find allies, supporters and critical friends. Not only your friend next door, but partners from unexpected places and different areas.”
Smart Up! event complements
This approach continued at the Smart Up! event. In this event renowned researchers and practitioners discussed matters such as the ‘relatedness’-concept, clusters and multi-level coordination and matrix-type interaction, all with particular attention to the Northern Netherlands.
During workshops and plenary discussion, opinions were gathered on how the Northern Netherlands could improve its Smart Specialisation Strategy and how knowledge and ideas from partner might be applicable or adaptable for the situation in the Northern Netherlands. Particularly the need to develop a common, collective vision was considered to be important. Within that context, it is important for all actors to feel uninhibited and to be allowed to make mistakes, as long as they learn from them. All the information collected at the conference is published at the site <www.snn.nl/smartup>.
Next stop: Sabadell
In the last week of November, the next Long-Term Visit is organised by the Lead Partner of the project: the Economic Development Agency of Sabadell in Catalonia, Spain.
