Description (EN): The project aims to establish a network of regional and local policy-makers and development authorities, which will improve the European public support strategies and policies regarding environmental sustainability and competitiveness of road transport by supporting knowledge-intensive producer services sector. The network shall stimulate improvement of regional strategies and policies through the exchange of know-how and good practices. It will lead to a better understanding of innovation dynamics in road transport sector and accommodate the transfer of academic and expert know-how on cluster support to regional policy-makers. Befittingly to the project aims all the partner regions possess characteristics of regional lead markets for innovation-inducing producer services for road transport.
The project will establish working groups to analyse producer services in detail, to identify and exchange good practices and to seek policy improvements. The contribution of producer services to sustainable road transport, regional innovativeness and cross-sectoral synergies will be the leading thematic interests. The findings will be disseminated through visiting programs, seminars, reports and conferences. An important contribution will be made by the academic partner of the project, which will provide the state-of-the-art expertise on producer services, regional economies and cluster policies. In order to stimulate an additional transfer of know-how to policy-makers, PROSESC will also organize seminar workshops with leading academics and high-ranking experts of Europe. The seminar topics shall cover clusters and agglomerations, models on cross-sectoral regional development, European expertise on cluster facilitation, services innovation and sustainable mobility scenarios.
Through the project activities, the effectiveness of regional strategies and practices supporting services innovation and manufacturing competitiveness will be improved. The project shall assist partner regions to upgrade their policies and their regional industries for the target of sustainable road transport. The geographical distribution and regional characteristics of project partners reflect the diversity of European landscape in terms of development and policy experience. A special emphasis will be laid on the dissemination and valorisation of project activities and outcomes. In all activities, the involvement and participation of other European regions, experts from the industry, regional stakeholders, R&D institutes and other relevant parties will be strongly encouraged.
Read more Achievements (EN): Knowledge intensive services (KIS) are indispensible for the innovativeness of Europe. The way they create, utilize & reproduce knowledge across enterprises and sectors creates positive externalities and spillover effects for the regions and the whole economy. In PROSESC the focus is on a specific subset of KIS, namely the type of services that are integral to the development and production of vehicles for sustainable road transport in most various specifications. The services that interest the project partners cover a broad span of areas, too: product design, R&D, engineering and ITservices, all the way to specialized logistics. The enterprises concerned, establish a complex ecosystem of enabling services that accelerate the absorption rate of innovative technologies by the automotive sector. Being so close to
production activities, such services are called “producer services”, hence the title of the project: “Producer Services for European Sustainability and Competitiveness.
In a nutshell, PROSESC is aimed at helping Europe reach its competitiveness and sustainability targets by raising innovativeness in and across automotive and services sectors through improved regional policy making. The activities of PROSESC can be described in two general groups the events with a clear focus on policy relevant discussions and more diversified study visits, where workshops with experts
are embedded to maximize learning effects. For instance, PROSESC project organized a successful highlevel policy event in Brussels in March 2011 on the mobility of the future and the perspectives on both sides of Atlantic. Following a keynote speech by Dr. Sven Beiker of Stanford University, a panel discussion with Philippe Lambert, MEP (European Parliament), "Dr. Reinhard Büscher (EC), Dr. Reha Tözün
(PROSESC) and Sylvain Haon (POLIS /ERTRAC) took place. The event was coorganized by fellow INTERREG IVC projects Making Knowledge Work and EURIS, as well as ERRIN Network.
The project midterm conference saw even higher profile speakers, like Mr. Borut Pahor, the Prime Minister of Slovenia and other highlevel stakeholders like Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Staiger (President of ERTRAC), Milos Sturm (President of ERTRAC Slovenia), Bojan Zlender (Slovenian Ministry of Transportation), Jernej Strith (Director of Slovenian Government of Office of Climate Change), et al.
In first half of 2012 PROSESC carried out a series of activities in the field of creative engineering. For example a e-car sound competition was carried out in the region of Stuttgart with more than 50 sound designers experimenting on future sound of mobility. The results were presented at the Elektromobiler Jahresauftakt of the Region and gained a lot of publicity -the Prime Minister of the State Baden-Wurttemberg, for example, awarded the winner.
In March 2012 the project carried out it's conference and study visit in Turin and attracted more than 80 participants from industry, policy and labour force.
Amongst other prominent speakers the CEO of world famous automotive design company Pininfarina informed about his point of view on the future of sustainable mobility. The event helped to initiate a rich discussion about the future of the Turin Automotive Cluster.
In June 2012 the project assembled for its next event in Vigo, capital of Galicia's automotive cluster and received valuable insights into the power of the region and the sophisticated and holistic way of engineering in the CTAG - Galicias automotive development center. University of Hertfordshire in 2012 carried out a series of interviews in the field of interest and collected some 600 pages qualitative raw data from ca 30 persons which will be used for policy recommendation.
Besides, project partners are actively sharing the outcomes and progress at the regional level. The project Steering Group members are regularly informed about project progress and thus represent a valuable control instrument for the project partners.
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