The BSR Stars programme aims at linking strong research environments, clusters and SME networks – creating a number of globally-leading innovation partnerships that address common societal challenges in the Baltic Sea Region. The programme also aims at strengthening innovation policy capabilities to work with smart specialisation on a macro-regional level.
The StarDust project was initiated in 2010 as a first step towards realising the overall long-term goals of BSR Stars, and testing the strategic policy frames. Through the StarDust project, we have managed to test this challenge-driven, macro-regional smart specialisation approach – delivering on ambitious targeted results and proving the potential of such an approach. We have shown the value of a common policy framework – the BSR Stars programme – which has acted as a bridge-builder and catalyser for innovation activities between actors from neighbouring countries. StarDust has focused on testing collaborative methods and policy support to a set of five transnational innovation partnerships.
The report “Smarter together” is the final publication of the StarDust project and summarizes the achievements and results of the collaboration. In the first part, you can read more about our strategic idea and the development of transnational collaboration through StarDust. Building on that, we present what we have learned from this collaboration over the last three years. We present success factors for getting started and developing the collaborative strength of the transnational partnerships. The third section provides implications and recommendations for the future of BSR Stars and suggests BSR Stars 2.0 with strengthened design and implementation mechanisms.
Read more at bsr-stars.eu