Centre for Entrepreneurship WIT - Research Projects
CRIPREDE (Creating a Research and Technology Development (RTD) Investment Policy for Regions in Emerging and Developed Economies)
The Centre for Entrepreneurship at Waterford Institute of Technology is the lead partner in a consortium that includes Saxion Universities (Holland), Cumbria County Council (UK), University of Siegen (Germany), Novo Mesto (Slovenia) and the Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies (Latvia).
The purpose of this project is to analyse the current RTD policy processes of the partner regions constituting the consortium; and to clearly identify the bottlenecks that are hindering effective R&D investments to, and accordingly the economic development of, these regions. The analysis will furthermore identify contingent opportunities based on the strengths and weaknesses specific to the regions.
The research and analysis will be informed by best practice in, and leading research on, existing entrepreneurial regions both in the EU25 and in some other countries outside EU25; focusing on the relationship between RTD policy (and investments) and its impact on regional development.
From the outset enterprise development agencies and industry representatives in the respective regions will be involved in the analysis of the region and the development of both the generic model defining best practice in RTD investment, and more specifically in generating the regional specific adaptive models. The two-tiered approach to this applied research is (a) the development of a generic model, based on best practice RTD regional investment practices worldwide, against which consortium member regions can assess themselves, and (b) based on the assessment against the generic model, to derive an adaptive model that enables regions to take local nuances into consideration when deriving their region specific, adaptive, models.
The outcome of this research and analysis will be a unified policy for research and technology development fostering entrepreneurship and technology transfer into (small) enterprises in the respective partner regions. The ultimate outcome is the derivation of a model that will provide a framework but will be adaptive to take cognisance of regional nuances and specific needs. This model will become an integral element of the policy process upon which the development and implementation of knowledge-based, knowledge-lead, entrepreneurial regions, through greater focus on an integrative RTD investment and practice policy, will be achieved.
The Centre for Entrepreneurship at Waterford Institute of Technology was one of eleven proposals out of 150 applications to be awarded 500,000 in funding from the EU Framework 6.
For further information on CRIPREDE contact Paul Swift, Project Co-ordinator
Tel: +353 51 302191 E-mail: pswift@wit.ie Web: www.criprede.com
