PROJECT IDEA
IDÉE DE PROJET
Project Name / Nom du projet :
INNOV8
Specific Objective / Objectif spécifique :
1.1 - To increase the delivery and uptake of innovative products, processes, systems and services, to address
common economic and societal challenges within the FCE area.
1.1 - Accroître le développement et l’adoption de produits, processus, systèmes et services innovants qui
répondent aux enjeux économiques et sociétaux de l’espace FMA
Summary description of the project idea / Description synthétique du projet:
What are the issues we are trying to address?
1. Combine French productivity practices with English innovation methods.
“International Comparisons on Productivity” by Office of national Statistics in 2012, UK businesses had a 20.5%
lower rate of productivity than their French counterparts. This represents an ongoing trend that has existed for
over 25 years
French SMEs compared to their English equivalents have generated 20% higher levels of productivity per capita but
lower levels of innovation in terms of patents and disruptive market developments in relation to their English
counterparts.
Through joint learning this project will enable English and French businesses to learn from each other to create
solutions that combine English innovation practices with the French application methods that lead to increased
productivity for the benefit of both nations.
2. Highly responsive Anglo/French market led services & disseminating knowledge
Traditionally business support services have been designed to provide services around fixed and immobile subjects
that cannot respond to rapidly fluctuating free market forces, social trends and environmental disasters. This project
will enable businesses support services to be 100% responsive to the needs of the business community, evolving to
respond to business issues such as banking crisis, social issues such as devolution effecting supply chains and
environmental disasters such as flooding or foot and mouth disease.
Our project will use web technology as a means of addressing issues of rural exclusion and hard-to-reach social
groups. Acting as a virtual knowledge hub the GAIN Digital Exchange has been piloted in England for 12 months and
supported nearly 30,000 businesses. The trial in now ready to be extended to our French partners and SMEs to
respond to their business needs. It will provide us with a high volume and low-unit cost means of assessing market
needs, sectorial trends and communicating the business support solution to a large audience. This Digital exchange
is unique in enabling businesses to help each other through peer-to-peer support and creates a sustainable model
for research and knowledge transfer.
Our private sector partners Blur, will provide a global reach of over 55,000 suppliers of business support to help the
businesses implement their new knowledge. This approach enables us to tailor business support services in a highly
responsive market led way not undertaken before. Each business support service will be monitored and supported
by academic and students who will benchmark the impact in terms of innovation and productivity on both French
and English businesses. These anonymous findings will be published as “best practice” guidance on GAIN Digital
Exchange for the widest possible adoption.
3. Physical Workspace co-operation and learning.
Delivery of business support services will be through the French and English physical workspace infrastructure
including innovation centres, science parks and incubators. Existing tenants will acts as a route to market for the
service offers and will use workplace clients can be encouraged to use the Exchange and participate in some of the
project activities take place. In addition the learning from canvassing the workplace operators would be invaluable
Supporting Information
For this project, our key business related target groups for increased engagement in innovation activity are existing
businesses; Start-Up businesses and the entrepreneurs of the future. For each of these target groups, a step-change
in innovation is required to support the area’s transition to a more knowledge-based economy. In order to achieve
this, we would like to make better use of physical workspaces and use digital technology to address issues around
isolation and rurality. We aim to promote a broader outlook to enable culture change within businesses and
organisations thus increasing performance and competitiveness.
 The project builds on the Inspiring Open Innovation Team (IOIT) project which supported over 150
businesses showed that adopting open innovation techniques and collaborating with similar organisations
across the supply chain, are fundamental skills to enable grow in a fast paced and changing social and
economic environment’
Some of the key conclusions of the previous IOIT project included:o Innovation business support needs to have a structure that allows for a linear progression from
early engagement (eg: via seminars and workshops) through to more intensive support such as
action learning sets and on-site support from specialist advisors
o There is a need to inspire the entrepreneurs of tomorrow through exposure to new business
modelling techniques and greater collaboration with the business community
o There is a need to enable greater trans-national collaboration between businesses, start-ups and
entrepreneurs to increase the opportunities for innovation and greater productivity
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 The project also goes beyond and builds on previous multi-sector innovation support initiatives funded
through the France (Channel) England Cross-border Cooperation Programme. This includes:
o The CHAIN projects helped 100’s of businesses by developing linkages between incubators /
enterprise centres across the Channel area, including mapping specialisms, developing a database
of business beneficiaries and an (international) support programmes for new starts.
o The ‘Building an Expertise Network for an Efficient Innovation and Training System (BENEFITS)
project was highly successful in building cross-Channel networks to support knowledge transfer
and innovation in SMEs to improve global competitiveness. The project includes activities to :
establish transnational exchange programmes ; ensure the innovation abilities of people and
companies ; and maintain and develop the industrial and manufacturing fabric
o The New Deal for Innovation (NDI) project which developed an ‘innovation tool kit’ to facilitate
innovation and growth amonst SMEs and micro-businesses.
o The Growth and Entrepreneurs Network in the Channel Area (GENIE) cluster project, which sought
to disseminate the results of business growth, innovation and international projects funded
through the Interreg IVA France (Channel) England Programme.
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 the project will focus on delivering a number of complementary work packages, described in greater detail
later in this document. Fundamentally, the project is designed to:
o encourage innovative business practices amongst new start and micro enterprise in a diverse and
largely (but not exclusively) rural economy
o focus on promoting high-level innovation activity amongst businesses involved in the knowledgeintensive smart specialisation sectors such as the Nuclear industry supply chain, environmental
science/big data; Low Carbon; Marine and Aerospace, which have been identified as key growth
sectors in the Devon and Somerset local economies. Providing complimentary activity to that
available elsewhere, encouraging cross sectoral and cross border links.
Examples of actions / Exemples d’actions :
We will focus the project on delivering actions under a series of complimentary work packages, which are outlined
in more detail below:
WP1 – Addressing barriers to innovation through the use of digitech
Our research shows that the actions contained under WP1 are unique in the UK and is a new way of
delivering business/innovation support in response to identified needs. The work package builds on the
previous Open Innovation team project which identified key barriers to growth as outlined in section 1.1 of
this proposals. The actions outlined below are designed to address these barriers, and act as a series of
complimentary interventions to support business growth, productivity and innovation:
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Using an innovative web based platform to enhance B2B communications (GAIN) and demand-led business
support provision: we will use the technology implemented through the GAIN Growth Hub which is one of
the leading web based platforms for business support in the UK, to encourage businesses to access
innovation support and also to enable them to provide self support and diagnostics amongst the business
community. The GAIN Digital Exchange is a web based platform that addresses the need to provide instant
business support solutions from all sources, quickly and accurately. Designed to bring together businesses
gaininbusiness.com enables pre-start, start up and established businesses to share their experiences and
source advice and guidance via peer-to-peer networks and suppliers of business support.
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The Digital Exchange represents a step change in how business support provision is supplied. The site is
interactive enabling the crowd of business users to define what support services they need, how they need
it, when they need it and through which medium it should be delivered. The site is designed to encourage
discussion amongst businesses and suppliers of business support by providing a forum to pitch and answer
business questions ensuring the experiential learning undertaken by each individual business every day can
be pooled for broader dissemination and adoption. This ensures the services provided to businesses
remain relevant throughout the lifetime of the project and can be tailored to the inevitable changes in
macro and micro economic, environmental and social conditions under which the SMEs operate. The virtual
platform will:
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1.
Be content-rich, engaging, and dynamic, with personalized content filtering, full mobile
optimization, and an much-needed platform in which business people can interact and share
expertise – the Connect forum.
2.
Attract visitors to the site who will be encouraged to register and participate in the site – through
the forum, through commenting on each article, or even by providing content.
3.
Include; access to a grant search engine, events, expert briefings, locally contextualized content,
and access to wide range of business support solutions defined by the Users themselves.
4.
Represent the knowledge hub, where research, development, survey and qualitative
experimental learning of businesses including best practice, benchmarking and
recommendations will be held , published and pushed to tailored individual User accounts.
Use of this online platform to address challenges around the rural economy (isolation/need for greater
innovation) and to make connections between the urban knowledge base and rural areas. This will be done
by bringing specific events and support to rural areas, bringing together different sectors in the UK and
France so they learn collectively. We will capture the results of this work to disseminate through the web
based platform what interventions yield the best results for business..
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Using the online platform as a means to interact/poll businesses on an ongoing basis re: how collaboration
could increase innovation ( and what would help them to innovate) and then to deliver accordingly
Cross border learning/sharing of ideas to develop new strategies for innovation to drive productivity
Enhancing cross border/transnational b2b or business collaboration/supply chains through the
development of specific learning activities which will bring together businesses from all partner countries.
Activities will include face to face seminars, alongside e-learning sessions, and webinars. (any other
specifics we should include which will make the project unique? Need to check if anything like this has
already been done and explain why our approach is unique) use social media platforms to get to a wide
audience e.g Twitter.
Focus on working with businesses within Smart Specialisation areas BUT also exploring how bedrock
industries can be supported to innovate and grow. We will ensure that partner areas have a complimentary
mix of business sectors, enabling our approach and its impact to be comprehensively tested, explored and
evaluated.
Using an international supplier base of innovation experts and professionals: we will partner with the Blur
company to make use of their innovative supply chain platform to ensure that we can test out what the
impact on project outcomes will be, of having easy access to a global network of innovation experts
We will identify and celebrate, a network of innovators to incentivise aspiring ‘start ups’ and stimulate
growth in existing businesses. These will link into our target sector groups and will be identified by their
ability to scale up and grow.
We will use our star innovators to also inspire the entrepreneurs of tomorrow by using them as case studies
for student based enterprise education programmes.
We will engage year 3 students within our university partner to provide appropriate support to businesses
within the programme through internships. In addition, through the use of blogs, video bursts and other
on-line content, we will ensure that links are made to secondary schools to help support and inspire the
entrepreneurs of tomorrow.
WP2 How physical work space in different locations can foster/increase innovation
We recognise the need for businesses to have access to a range of spaces to enable them to grow, especially
those micro enterprise that may be home based and who wish to take their first steps renting space. This
stage of growth is key for any business and to provide appropriate space to meet identified needs, we are
reinventing existing spaces e.g. public libraries, co-working/work hub centres etc. these spaces not only
provide a base for businesses but also enable greater b2b links and collaboration amongst their users
therefore.
The face to face elements of WP2 will be delivered in the above spaces, enabling us to deliver innovation
support to a range of businesses, testing out the impact of delivery using webinars, action learning sets,
video bursts etc, alongside more traditional face to face seminars. All of this will be delivered in line with
the expressed needs of businesses.
Our focus will be on supporting businesses within these spaces, but also the organisations running the
spaces, ensuring we can thoroughly test out the best approaches to encouraging them to promote
innovation and productivity growth within their tenants/users. Encouraging cross border learning as to the
best techniques to do this, will also be a fundamental part of the programme.
We will also use the GAIN platform to create a virtual network to share ideas amongst users/operators of
these spaces, exploring learning and collaboration opportunities to encourage business success..
WP3 Communication/Dissemination/research and evaluation
GAIN stimulates market uptake and therefore communication and dissemination activity through a number
of ways which we would seek to replicate in France. These include:
Partner Channels i.e. using our network of innovation centres and partners to act as advocates who drive
traffic to the site.
> E-alerts and marketing emails
> Social media – sharing through Twitter and LinkedIn Groups
> Events Teams and internal business engagement resources
>Tailored Communications - Through the content on their personalised homefeed
> Newsletters and e-shots
> Emails to let them know about content they might be interested in
Our goal is also to help UK and French based businesses, within both rural and urban environments and
across all key identified sectors to learn from each other to drive up innovation. This inclusive approach to
identifying new thinking and innovative ways of implementing new learning that uses digital technology
creates a unique approach that is cross-border, overcome issues of rural isolation and embraces knowledge
transfer across all business types.
To achieve this goal we will create a Shared Knowledge Exchange fuelled and populated by :
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Academic and SME collaborative research activity that determines the business need, identifies solutions
and tracks and evaluates the impact of implementation. All findings will be published via the Digital
Exchange for broader audience adoption.
Business surveys that determine SME needs and result in relevant and market led solutions that also create
business intelligence data on market trends, gaps in market provision and the demands of SMEs.
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Qualitative research outcomes via the Connect Forum that enables businesses to share their experiential
and cognitive learning with each other. Trends, case studies and best practice will be published as part of
the Shared Knowledge Exchange element of the Digital Exchange.
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Student research activity will be generated from student placement and engagement with SMEs to aid the
implementation of the learning generated from our events and business support forums.
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Collaborative R & D activity via Knowledge Transfer projects will be generated between Plymouth
University, SMEs and business-to-business collaborations generated as a result of the networking
environment produced by this project.
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We will evaluate the costs and benefits of the methodologies outlined above to explore their value for
money and to help inform future business support interventions and approaches used. We will especially
evaluate the impact of using the GAIN and Blur platforms as part of this project and the lessons this provides
for the future
By creating a digital network of businesses and beneficiaries we are able to track and monitor the
development of businesses after the project has ended. This enables the project to report on impacts and
results well beyond the contract end date of the project ensuring a more longitudinal approach to our
research activity and will add further into the expected results which will be delivered by the project.
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Expected results / Résultats attendus :
An on-going feedback-loop to assess impacts; Indicators will include:
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x number of business support activities (workshops/seminars/peer-to-peer trans national
networks/intensive business assists)
x Number of businesses supported
x Number of students supported in HE/FE/secondary education (including trans-national competitions;
placements; cross-HE collaborations)
Outcomes re: GVA; Jobs; New or improved products or services
x Number of new (trans-national) networks developed
Evidence of x businesses accessing new markets through trans-national collaboration
European and national partners / Partenaires nationaux et européens
TBC – with support from Julie Becel
Partners (with their geographical areas) already involved in the project concept / Partenaires (en précisant leur zone
géographique) déjà impliquées à ce stade d’idée de projet:
 Devon County Council http://www.devon.gov.uk/
 Somerset County Council http://www.somerset.gov.uk/
 Plymouth University https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/
 Blur Group – http://www.blurgroup.com/
Potential partners sought / Partenaires potentiels recherchés :
England / Angleterre :
Other public sector partner on the English channel coast with similar issues/challenges as existing partners.
France / France :
Public sector partner
University
Chamber of Commerce/Business facing partner.
Start date and end date of the project / Dates de début et de fin du projet: March 2016 – sept 2019
Estimated project cost / Coût estimé du projet:
Range of 2 to 4 m euros depending on number of partners as range of activities could scale up or down
European added value / Valeur ajoutée européenne :
Enhanced European knowledge base : international co-operation that contributes to increasing the excellence and
attractiveness of EU research and innovation, this includes improving SME capabilitie and increasing research and
joint initiative’s..
Economic impact, efficiency gains and financial benefits. – International action at a cross border level, that have an
economic impact, either in the form of efficiency gains (e.g. simplification and streamlining, pooling and
rationalisation of efforts) or financial benefits (even after considering all costs and risks inherent in cross border cooperation. This can include for instance the leverage public funding can have on private investment.
Societal/technological challenges – Cross border activities that focus on specific societal/technological challenges
that are shared across the EU>
Other comments / Autres commentaires :
Contact / Contact
Name / Nom : Steve Turner
Organisation / Organisme : Devon County Council
Address / Adresse : Economy & Enterprise, Lucombe House, County Hall, Topsham Road, Exeter EX2 4QD
Website / Site internet : www.devon.gov.uk
Telephone number / Numéro de téléphone :
+44 (0)1392 383194
E-mail / E-mail : steve.turner@devon.gov.uk
Has a programme facilitator from the InterregVA FCE Joint Technical Secretariat provided advice to the project
applicant? / Un coordinateur de l’animation du Secrétariat Technique Conjoint FMA a-t--’il conseillé le porteur du
projet ?
Yes / Oui
If yes, facilitator’s name / Si oui, quel est le nom du coordinateur de l’animation ?
Name / Nom: Julie Becel