From Smart City to Smart Society

March 18-21, 2018, Aarhus, Denmark

A first in the series, Aarhus Innovation Camp took place on 18-21 March 2018 with the broader theme “From Smart City to Smart Society”. It brought together close to 60 participants from all the Baltic Sea regions, ranging from regional development professionals and politicians to academia and civil society representatives.

Aarhus Innovation Camp outputs are first ideas and rough solutions developed in response to challenges put forward by participant regions.

Central Denmark Region
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Central Denmark Region

Aarhus

Central Denmark Region

City of Tallinn
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City of Tallinn

Aarhus

City of Tallinn

City of Kotka
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City of Kotka

Aarhus

City of Kotka

Other Camp outputs were about promoting inter-regional collaboration in BSR, e.g. by establishing an annual “Icebreaker” event bringing together BSR politicians, regional actors, academia and NGOs to innovate, network and share ideas and best practices in smart specialisation in informal atmosphere.

Peer Exchange Learning Workshop at Aarhus

EU Joint Research Centre organized a Peer Exchange Learning (PXL) workshop to assist the regions in progressing with their RIS3 strategy implementation. The workshop focused on regional experiences in operationalising entrepreneurial discovery process, designing and implementing policy instruments and monitoring regional RIS3. Altogether five (5) regions presented their progress and challenges in RIS3 implementation and received peer feedback and ideas for development: Helsinki (FI), Pomorskie (PL), Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia (click for ppts).

A common challenge to the regions is how to involve relevant stakeholders, increase their voice and ownership of the policy and enhance the accountability of public interventions. To provide more space and opportunities for continuous entrepreneurial discovery process in RIS3 it is necessary to establish stakeholders’ platforms for on-going discussion on the evolution of priority domains and the identification of new ones. The story-telling approach is helpful in maintaining coherence of the whole system in RIS3-related policy-making, monitoring and implementation.