P4 : Innovation and resilience

Priority 4 – Improving territorial resilience in NWE through innovative and smart transformation - refers to Policy objective 1 “a more competitive and smarter Europe by promoting innovative and smart economic transformation and regional ICT connectivity”.

Although the NWE area is leading in many sectors, disparities relating to innovation capacities, the use of technologies and the deployment of digitalisation can be observed in the different NWE territories and economies. Furthermore the COVID crisis and its aftermath, the impact of Brexit and globalisation have emphasised the need to support public and private innovation players in NWE (SMEs, business support organisations, clusters, representative chambers of professionals/sectors, local, regional and national authorities, public infrastructure providers, research and technology organisations, (public) service providers, citizen associations etc.). In this context, innovation and the support to public and private innovation players shall be an enabler for economic and territorial development. Innovation capacities are needed to support the transformation of economies towards future-proof business development as well as for tackling territorial challenges and boost smart and integrated development. Innovative capacities ranging from private to public sectors are crucial for the balanced territorial development of all regions.