HIGHLIGHTS

Objective

  • To create the conditions - through the establishment of Mediterranean Cross-border Living Labs - for an effective interaction between the main innovation players of the Quadruple Helix: Academia, Industry, Civil Society and Governments in the digital economy

What will be improved?

  • The involved countries share common specific needs and constraints, such as the high youth unemployment rate, the low participation of women in the workforce or low public investment in R&D. MED-QUAD will address these challenges by creating the right environment where universities, SMEs, and governments cooperate and promote together innovation of processes and products. The Quadruple Helix approach will be applied to the planned cross-border Living Labs focused on 2 crucial issues: Tourism and Water. Universities will establish Innovation Transfer Offices, and policy-makers will acquire competences for creating entrepreneurship ecosystems where new firms find the right support. In the short term, at least 5 cross border spin-offs and at least 5 existing SMEs will create new jobs for qualified young people.

Who will benefit?

  • Universities
  • Staff of city councils
  • SMEs and business associations
  • Regional and national authorities
  • Policy-makers
  • Entrepreneurs

Expected achievements

  • 2 Living Labs established
  • 8 joint projects between universities and SMEs launched
  • 80 professionals benefiting from training on entrepreneurial skills
  • 6 co-publications released
  • 10 new innovative products/services commercialized

Contribution to policy-making

  • Measuring innovation is a major step towards evidence-based policy-making. It needs metrics that shows how innovation is, or could be, linked to policy and the country innovation ecosystem. MED-QUAD, by developing the Quadruple Helix approach, will provide policy-makers and public authorities with guidelines containing a roadmap for innovation listing the fundamental principles and indicators on which funds should be allocated. This is particularly important since some partner countries, despite having set up several policy initiatives in recent years targeted toward the entrepreneurship ecosystem, have obtained low scores in the pillar 12 of the Global Entrepreneurship Index (GEI).

PROJECT IN NUMBERS

  • Partners: 7
  • Countries: 6
  • Technical outputs: 12

PROJECT DURATION

  • Start date: 08 September 2020
  • End date: 07 March 2023