Regional recognition of Industrial Districts, Regional Innovative Networks and Business aggregations
About this good practice
The productive system in Veneto is historically characterized by districts of enterprises. These are formed by SMEs born in a specific territory that work and cooperate in the same branch of industry achieving greater results than they would do if they were alone.
Enterprises are constantly evolving, but they could benefit from increased investments in research and development, and from cooperation with research bodies.
To achieve these objectives, Veneto Regional Law 13/2014 established criteria to identify 3 types of aggregations.
-Industrial Districts are production systems located within a limited area of the regional territory, characterized by a high density of companies (mainly SMEs) that operate on specific production chains.
-Regional Innovative Networks are not bound to a specific area and are composed of enterprises and research bodies (e.g. universities), which cooperate with a trans-sector or multi-sector approach.
-Business aggregations are networks of at least 3 companies established for challenging specific projects, and can be formed even on a temporary base.
Each subject defined under these 3 categories is entitled to choose a legal representative to interact with local institutions.
Regional Law foresaw the creation of specific tenders to select and finance development projects involving these type of subjects.
The main beneficiaries are companies and research organizations; involved stakeholders are trade unions, chambers of commerce and civil society.
Resources needed
No funds were directly used to create the law
Evidence of success
At December 2022 we had:
21 Regional Innovative Networks identified;
15 Industrial Districts identified;
6 calls for tenders with ERDF funding issued;
4 tenders issued with financing from regional funds.
This kind of recognition allows small and medium-sized enterprises to connect more closely with Europe and national and regional policies. Through the work of RINs, local and regional actors take a more active role in gathering and coordinating pan-European and inter-regional value networks.
Potential for learning or transfer
The spontaneous creation of business clusters is a phenomenon that also exists in other territories: companies that operate in the same sector are often located territorially close in order to support each other.
Similarly, the need may arise for a public administration to rationalize these systems, in order to improve the quality of interaction with local operators and create tenders based on the actual needs expressed by them.
The identification of the regional innovative network is an innovation policy tool capable of bringing out, with a bottom up approach, regional innovation ecosystems: the RINs are essentially identifiable as the clusters of the different European regions.
The strength of RINs as identified in RL 13/2014 is to optimize the implementation of the regional smart specialization strategy by channeling available public resources into projects with high innovative potential.
Further information
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