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The positive impact of effective regional innovation on economic growth, employment and social stability is recognised everywhere. Yet many European regions are lagging behind and seem unable to "catch up" or engage in a process of full innovation as a critical success factor for their development. Different regional settings, contextual factors and more (or less) local opportunities undeniably play a role. Yet the ability to build capacity for collaborative partnership and to exercise strong leadership in order to bring together a variety of regional stakeholders behind a common regional strategy is "the" critical step for regional success.

The conference format will be highly interactive, with expert international keynote speakers and panelists including participants from the European Commission, academe, business and public authorities committed to fostering the development of real collaboration between sectors to support regional development. With practical interactive sessions it will provide participants the opportunity to try out "on the ground" the lessons learnt from the EU-Drivers project; every participant will receive a copy of the EU-Drivers toolkit with good practices to support effective transformational regional innovation.

In our pre-conference reception, networking breakfast and poster sessions the conference will provide ample opportunities for direct exchange between regional, university and business leaders as well as access to EU policy-makers. As such you can keep ahead on the latest information on EU policy and programme developments such as the Smart Specialisation Strategy, Horizon 2020 (and its links to the structural funds) as well as the new Erasmus for All programme.

For the preliminary Conference Structure Programme, please see event entry below.

Venue - Representation State North Rhine-Westphalia to the EU, Montoyer street, 47 - Brussels 1000