During 2012-2014, OECD runs a project on cross-border regional innovation policies in collaboration with six regions. The aim is to provide recommendations to policy makers on when and how to design policies to support cross-border innovation.
Globalisation has increased the importance of tapping into a wider network of knowledge. A cross border regional innovation policy may support knowledge spill-overs, create economies of scale and a global outreach of innovation activities. Still, policies to support innovation are often restricted to administrative regions, rather than to support collaboration across functional regions.
To explore the possibility for policy makers to support cross-border innovation, the OECD has launched a project in collaboration with the following six border-regions: Ireland-Northern Ireland (Ireland-UK); Öresund (Sweden-Denmark); Top Technology ELAt (Netherlands-Belgium-Germany); the Bothnian Arc (Sweden-Finland); Hedmark-Dalarna (Norway-Sweden) and Helsinki-Tallinn (Finland-Estonia). Four of the regions include Nordic countries.
The role of Nordregio is to support the OECD team and representatives of the two cross-border regions Hedmark-Dalarna and Bothnian Arc in the preparation of regional state-of the art reports and in arranging peer review seminars and study visits.