General recommendations

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GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS

Policy recommendations are hard to develop. They can be too generic – so they don‘t appeal to the people who are supposed to implement them; or they are too specific – and will only work in one type of environment. That is why this guide has three levels of general recommendations that can be applied to regions with different levels of experience.
THE EXCELLENCE LEVEL is demonstrated by the original twenty regions, studied and shared by regions with similar profiles. Recommendations for these regions are: – Secure access to capital, especially for small regions – Attract big brands – Recognise the importance of indirect factors – Don’t interfere with the market
CLIMBING LEVEL is typified by regions that have some of the things that are needed to create excellence, but still need to build critical mass or infrastructure in order to move further up the value chain. Recommendations for climbing regions are: – Develop connections with providers of capital – Focus on strengths – Build up knowledge and access to knowledge – Invest in infrastructure – Create policies promoting the public sector as a buyer
	CHALLENGER LEVEL is applied to regions that don’t have an existing mobile or mobile service industry, and where other sectors are stronger. These regions may have a strong cluster within tourism or agriculture for instance. Therefore, mobile services will become a part of the core offers from these sectors but not an industry in itself. Recommendations for challenger regions: – Focus on regional strengths – Build infrastructure – Mobile services based on existing strengths are more likely to succeed – Build trust – Build support systems like cluster organisations

CONTEXTUALIZING THE RECOMMENDATIONS

In order to find out how the recommendations work in real life, three innovation partnerships were created to allow them to be tested in regional innovation communities. The results have been reviewed and presented as contextualised specific recommendations that could be implemented on a regional level.

LUXEMBOURG - CLIMBING TOWARDS EXCELLENCE ce
Through workshops the general findings and recommendations were put into a regional context and the following specific recommendations were outlined: Combine mobile technology with existing industries, for instance the financial sector Increase activities that attract talent Make it easier to start up a new company Create test beds and large-scale demonstrators Create an open data portal in order to boost new business opportunities Build capacity through new digital methods for sharing knowledge Introduce free Wi-Fi in Luxembourg Increase collaboration between industry and the university The work has resulted in a policy brief containing concrete actions for the public sector, and a public presentation with feedback from the innovation community. Contact: Innovation Partnership Luxembourg, LU, Younis Hijazi, younis.hijazi@luxinnovation.lu
KYUSTENDIL - CHALLENGING OLD MIND-SETS AND HABITS
The region of Kyustendil in Bulgaria has a huge desire to develop new jobs and attract businesses to the region. However, it faces many challenges: it has an ageing infrastructure, a lack of relevant talent, a very bureaucratic administration for SMEs, low self-confidence and a lack of financial resources. The involvement of key people within the regional public structure, combined with experience from EU – funded structural programmes has made it possible to contextualize the general recommendations and make them more specific to the region:	Contact: Kyustendil, BG, Nikolay Spasov, N.G.Spasov@kn.government.bg
Focus on existing industries within the region – agriculture and tourism, and use them as the focus of a smart specialisation strategy. The strategy should drive the implementation of mobile services that create and connect smart agriculture, a functional food industry and experiencebased tourism. Invest in infrastructure that makes it possible to be better connected. The region needs fibre-optic connections, upgraded 3G and 4G networks and access to public Wi-Fi. There is also a need for more meeting places, preferably connected to existing industry structures, for instance, tourist attractions. Increase the level of education by developing higher education courses in agriculture, functional food and tourism. This could be done in collaboration with either the University of Sofia or other international universities. Work to build trust by creating for instance, a cluster organisation using the existing models in Europe. Activities should concentrate on networking and building trust.
DUBLIN - TAKING EXCELLENCE ONE STEP FURTHER
	The city of Dublin (extending to the cities of Cork and Waterford) is one of those spots in Europe that has already achieved excellence in the field of mobile development. Stakeholders drawn from the public sector, universities and industry created a set of recommendations that concentrated on finance and market access: Create better connections between public funding and private venture capital. This includes encouraging development accelerators such as Wayra. Develop long-term relationships with large brands in order to minimize risk when multinationals leave. Connect public policies for culture with enterprise policies. It is important that talent is recruited and retained in the region, culture plays an important role in this. Improve existing policies with the aim of reducing governmental intervention where it is not necessary. Create a roadmap of what funding is needed, where and when, and use the roadmap to assist the development of public policy. Contact: Dublin, IE, Eoin O‘Neill, eponeill@tcd.ie