More than 300 participants come together in Valencia at the GROWyourREGIOn conference on the future of European Clusters

The 2nd edition of the ‘Grow your region’ conference has taken place in Valencia, Spain and was co-organised by the European Commission’s Directorate-Generals for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs and for Regional and Urban Policy, in cooperation with the Valencia Regional Authority.

At the conference held on 8^th and 9^th November, more than 300 attendees exchanged good practices and lessons have been drawn on how smart specialisation strategies are used and how clusters are being supported growth in Europe’s regions.

The opening was given by the President of the Generalitat Valenciana, Ximo Puig, and in his tour of the stands, he stopped at the EIT Climate-KIC Spain enabled for this appointment. During his visit to the stand, Puig was interested in this European partnership that addresses climate change through innovation , where its Spanish Director, Jose-Luis Muñoz, briefly explained him how the Spanish group of knowledge and innovation communities, Cross-KIC, was leading from Valencia.

The conference has been an opportunity to share smart specialisation and cluster experience and practices, exchange ideas about future actions for smart interregional collaboration and learn about novel ways of supporting innovation and accelerating industrial modernisation and SME growth. In this sense, it has been shown that the clusters are a permanent communication channel between companies and actors for the generation of scientific, technological and innovative knowledge.

It was highlighted that regions have the advantage of proximity to “promote changes at the microeconomic level“, which allows them to “collaborate effectively with companies, workers, research centers and various social agents” said Puig at the opening.

During the second day of the conference, the director of EIT Climate-KIC Spain, Jose-Luis Muñoz, had the opportunity to speak with Mathea Fammels, Head of the Policy & Communications Unit at the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and to comment on the progress made by the Spanish office in the last year. Among them, the conversion from a regional to a national level, where a relevant role has been played with the involvement in policies and strategies at regional and national level. It was highlighted the participation in the future Law on Climate Change and Energy Transition or the National Platform for Climate Change.

During this informal meeting, Muñoz also wanted to point out the leadership role that EIT Climate-KIC Spain is carrying out with the Spanish Cross-KIC workin group, as well as the support of EIT Climate-KIC for one of its partners, AVAESEN, that recently has been revealed as one of the 13 clusters integrated in the International Cleanteach Network, among others thanks to the Start-up Acceleration program of EIT Climate-KIC.

The conversation was also attended by the Member of the European Parliament, Lambert Van Nistelrooij, Coordinator of Committee Regional Development, Member Committee Internal Market and Consumer Protection, and Chairman of Knowledge4Innovation. The discussion was running and focused on how EIT Climate-KIC Spain has understood the integration of the innovation triangle and take it from a regional to a national scope with the participation of all stakeholders. Van Nistelrooij praised the work that the Spanish center was developing about it. He considered it was a success story and an example to follow.

Mr. Van Nistelrooij and Ms Fammels, were very interested about the achievements and success of the old Valencian RIC to become a national node last year, and the successful expansion of the Climate KIC Ecosystem at national level. They were pleasantly surprised about the good position of Climate KIC with the main stakeholders at national level, and specially the cooperation with National Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fish, Food and environment and the Spanish Green Growth Group, and at regional level in other Key Spanish regions.