partnerships to promote and encourage smart specialisation
and innovation initiatives. In this respect, we support Athens
Start up Business Incubator, (THEA), a self financing initia
tive of the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI)
for entrepreneurship promotion, through the Regional
Development Fund of Attica. In that regard, we opt to reward
innovative proposals and ideas for new entrepreneurs: we will
soon award innovative start ups, in cooperation with the
Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI).
Exploring
how to better join forces between public and pri
vate sectors, in which LRAs play a key role, is the third
dimension of the aforementioned three fold approach of
ours.
In this context, the Region of Attica has set up a clus
ter, thereby highlighting the Regional Unit of Northern Athens
as a cultural tourist destination. Thanks to the cooperation
between the LRAs and the private sector, we aim at creating
jobs and at supporting local entrepreneurship, by promoting
our nature and history.
A digital platform for Public Consultation on
entrepreneurship in Attica
However,
the challenge for this new regional development
model would lead to growth; not just “smart” but also sus
tainable and socially cohesive growth.
It is about a model of
entrepreneurship that would rely on increased citizen partic
ipation, in order to better reflect the real needs of the soci
ety in Attica. In this context,
the Region of Attica launches a
public consultation on the broad outlines of the Regional
Operational Programme “Attica 2014 2020”
, on the basis of
which actions are to be taken to support entrepreneurship,
with an emphasis on the priority areas identified in the Smart
Specialisation Strategy of the Region of Attica.
The public consultation is addressed to bodies and associa
tions, as well as the business community and the citizens for
the purpose of gathering views, ideas and proposals, so
that actions developed under the programme of the Attica
Region for entrepreneurship meet the actual needs of
Attica’s business environment.
It is
a multidimensional process of public consultation
, which
includes meetings with bodies and associations related to pro
moting entrepreneurship, and public events.
The digital Platform for Public Consultation
(
forum.gr/) has a key role to play
, as it
invites all these players –citizens, organisations and business
es– to contribute their ideas and proposals on entrepreneur
ship.
All interested parties can submit their views on the strategic
orientation of Attica’s programme for entrepreneurship, as
well as relevant investment priorities, and stand alone pro
posals and ideas. We seek the greatest possible involvement
and contribution of bodies, businesses and citizens to this
public consultation. Entrepreneurship and regional develop
ment strategy are, thereby, becoming an open challenge for
many, not an enclosure for a privileged few. Indeed, they
become a commonplace through specific policies which pro
duce results.
For, as Mariana Mazzucato quotes her colleague, Andrew
Stirling, Professor of Sussex in her book “The Entrepreneurial
State: debunking public vs. private sector myths”:
“So, the
more demanding the challenges for innovation (like poverty, ill
health or environmental damage), the greater becomes the
importance of effective policy. These challenges of innovation
policy go well beyond simplistic notions of governments trying
to “pick winners” … .
Instead, then, the central challenge in innovation policy is
about helping to harness the differences. This is about cul
turing the most fruitfully cross fertilising conditions across
society as a whole, for collectively seeding and selecting
across many alternative possibilities and together nurturing
the most potentially fruitful. (Stirling 2014a). This involves col
laboratively deliberating, negotiating and constructing what
‘winning’ even means, not just how best to achieve it.
”
Cross
fertilising conditions across society are precisely what the
Region of Attica Region aims at in order to effectively sup
port entrepreneurship and innovation, i.e.
two key factors
which will contribute, to a large extent, to the revival of the
local and, in particular, of the national economy.
