x-Inno Radar

Background Central Europe’s industrial regions are amidst a heavy transformation of their economic and social base. It is especially the non-metropolitan industrial regions that must change most profoundly in response to global economic trends, political demands, and structural disadvantages. In order to respond adequately to these structural challenges, not only technological advancement but also soft skills – enabling institutions‘ creative and collaborational engagement and thus, complementing their hard skills – are needed. Goals x-Inno Radar aims to explore, promote and integrate such soft skills and competences in rather hard-skill focused industrial environments in eight European regions. The partners, eight business support and regional development agencies, a think tank and IfL as scientific partner, want to jointly apply a novel place-based approach which centres around three sets of soft skills: transversal-, maker-, and pioneer skills. Workflow The project starts with regional screenings on and conceptualisation of soft skills. It moves then into a pilot phase. There, partners test novel approaches for strengthening and expanding soft skills capacities. Finally, they draw strategic conclusions, a. o. intended to improve RIS3 strategies. Further on, they transfer key findings to European level institutions and regional actors throughout Europe. The transnational setting of x-Inno Radar enables the project partners to co-design applicable solutions drawing from a shared pool of practical and theoretical knowledge.