
ASTRIDE, a reporting tool and beyond, for the Hauts-de-France R&I ecosystem

About this good practice
ASTRIDE (Application and Networking Services for Innovation and Economic Development) is the collaborative information system for sharing and pooling information between economic development stakeholders in the Hauts-de-France Region. ASTRIDE is managed by the Hauts-de-France Innovation Agency (HDFID). The new version of ASTRIDE was launched in January 2024.
Regional public and parapublic organizations (regional council services, innovation agencies, clusters, business associations…) can access to a digital cartography of the local Research and Innovation ecosystem (start-ups, projects owners, SMEs, laboratories, universities, associations…) and gather data regarding each structure information (employees, contacts, field of expertise…) and inform about their support (advices, grants, meetings).
Hence, the objective of this tool is to have an accurate picture of the regional R&I ecosystem and to monitor the public services inventory dedicated to these actors.
ASTRIDE database is shared and reviewed every quarter in a sectoral S3 meeting gathering the different stakeholders concerned. For instance, all the local public and parapublic organization supporting the R&I ecosystem in the mobility area review each quarter ASTRIDE in a specific meeting.
Expert opinion
Resources needed
Funding for:
• Data hosting
• Application security
• GDPR advice
• Programming environment
ERDF funding per year for the salaries + 25k€ (Data Hosting + Microsoft Licences)
Human resources :
• 1 IT project manager
• 2 IT developers
• 1 manager Data
• 1 data analyst
Evidence of success
• Every day, + 50 partners (ecosystem organisations) enter their data on visits and support provided to companies in the Hauts-de-France region.
• The partners recorded 6,350 visits, for 1,860 support services and 757 grants (financing) awarded in 2023.
o “Support” refers to company support (introductions, project set-up, finding partners, etc.).
o "Grants" correspond to "public" financing to support innovation or industrial performance projects at regional, national and European levels.
Potential for learning or transfer
This practice could be interesting for other EU regions dealing with economic development and innovation policy reporting and monitoring activities.
It is also a way to better understand innovation dynamics, to characterize a local business ecosystem and identify its needs, gaps and support in order to better implement local public services and policies and facilitate its evaluation.
The fact that this collaborative database is built on a regulatory database (Insee source) facilitates the transfer to other regions. Importing regions have to ensure the commitment of the involved operators to insert the required information and their willingness to share the information with other operators.
Regular reviews with the regional authority are required to ensure information quality,and consistency contributing to a reliable monitoring device.
Good practice owner
You can contact the good practice owner below for more detailed information.