EU cohesion policy is designed to reduce disparities between Member states and regions across the European Union. However, some European regions have struggled to catch-up to wider EU growth.
... See More + Hence, the EU has implemented the Lagging Regions Initiative. The goal of the initiative is to identify the problems of the lagging regions and design and implement actions unlocking their growth potential. Poland and Romania were the first two countries, where the initiative was piloted. The Polish part of the Lagging Regions Initiative was named "Catching-up Regions Poland" and was implemented in Swietokrzyskie and Podkarpackie. The World Bank provided technical assistance (TA) and helped to coordinate activities in these regions. The Catching-up Regions Poland continues in another three regions, Lodzkie, Podlaskie, and Walbrzych sub-region in Lower Silesia. This report is one of the outcomes of this initiative carefully analysing the situation in these regions and identifying the potential for growth. One of the biggest opportunities to stimulate growth is to enhance the technology transfer from universities and research institutes and support local companies in the adoption of innovations. Thus, technology transfer is central to this report. In lagging regions, technology transfer can be one of the key drivers of regional competitiveness and regional growth1 and can play an important role in economic development in general. However, technology transfer is often rather weak in lagging regions compared to regional leaders. After a detailed examination of the situation in Lodzkie, Podlaskie, and Walbrzych regions, the report proposes practical recommendations that will lead to improved technology transfer capabilities, innovation adoption, and economic growth of the analysed regions. Technology transfer in the context of this report is understood in its broader definition as a transfer of intellectual property (both formal and informal) from universities and research institutes in to practice, university-based entrepreneurship, contractual research, and other types of cooperation between academia and private companies.
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Après avoir analysé les développements récents de l’économie ivoirienne ainsi que ses perspectives pour le court et moyen termes, ce sixième rapport sur la situation économique en Côte d’ivoire s’intéresse aux moyens qui lui permettraient de rattraper son retard technologique.
... See More + Si le pays a retrouvé une trajectoire de forte croissance après plus d’une décennie d’instabilité politique, son objectif de devenir un pays émergent ne pourra être atteint sans des entreprises plus performantes, puisqu’elles sont le principal employeur du pays et génèrent l’essentiel de ses revenus.
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The objective of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Venture Capital Project is to strengthen risk capital financing for innovative SMEs and startups in Croatia.
... See More + The project is structured in three components: the first supporting the development of venture capital fund, the second financing seed co-investments, and the third providing for technical assistance. Activities under the first component have not been implemented. Limited progress has been registered under the remaining two components. Under component two, the first call for proposals for Seed Co-Investment Fund required an extension to attract interest at all, and still only a low number of applications was received. Under component three, capacity building activities have not been implemented as expected, resulting in missed learning opportunities for Government, investors and potential investees. Hence, progress towards achievement of the Project Development Objective (PDO) and implementation progress have been rated as ‘unsatisfactory’ as per the December 2017 ISR. The project will be closed with a rating in the ‘unsatisfactory’ range because the PDO has not been achieved and related activities have not been carried out. The exact rating will be determined with the note on cancelled operation (NCO) report.
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The development objective of the Mobile Innovation Project under EPIC Project for Caribbean aims (1) to strengthen the Caribbean mobile innovation ecosystem and (2) to enable sustainable and competitive mobile enterprises to grow.The project model is based on supporting and coordinating activities in locally based startup ecosystem hubs and the project consists of training courses, mobile app competitions, and support to promising entrepreneurs to launch their products,strengthen their market share and investment readiness.The Caribbean Mobile Innovation Project was initially designed as a 40-month project under the Entrepreneurship Program for Innovation in the Caribbean (EPIC).
... See More + The implementing agency, UWI Consortium, has been provided a grant by The World Bank Group on behalf of the Government of Canada in the amount of USD 1,500,000. The project implementation period commenced July 17, 2014 with a scheduled closing date of November 30, 2017.T he proposed change to the project is an extension of the grant closing date from November 30, 2017 to November 30, 2018. The requested extension is to ensure that UWI Consortium has adequate time to implement all the components of the project and meet the project objectives.
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