Cohesion policy: Commission launches public consultation on Interregional Innovation Investment initiative

Today, the European Commission is opening a public consultation to hear the views of citizens and stakeholders on the Interregional Innovation Investment (I3) initiative that the Commission has proposed to set up in the next programming period. The objective is to collect ideas for further developments of this new instrument, especially on specific aspects such as priority areas for investment, links with EU priorities, implementation mechanisms, type of support, investment needs, market failure, investment readiness, and more. Commissioner for Cohesion & Reforms, Elisa Ferreira said: “I strongly encourage stakeholders at national, regional and local level to participate to the public consultation on the future Interregional Innovation Investment initiative. We want to know, among others, how this instrument can best support them at the various governance level, by involving different categories of regions and activating synergies with other EU funding opportunities.” The 2021-2027 period will seek to reinforce interregional cooperation for innovation via the European Regional Development Fund with an approximate budget of €500 million. In this context, the Commission proposed to set up a new Interregional Innovation Investment initiative aimed at helping actors involved in smart specialisation strategies (S3) to cluster together, scale up and bring innovation to the European market. The ambition is to mobilise public-private investment, leveraging the impact of the available budget. The consultation will close on 30 September 2020.