During the period from 7th to 9th of March 2019, 3 KEPA’s team members, along with 1 member of the national stakeholder group, participated in the 1st partner meeting in Bruges.
This kick-off meeting started a new interregional collaboration aiming to enhance SME competitiveness. The project partners gathered in the historic city of Bruges for an event combining a Partnership Meeting, an interactive workshop with key stakeholders from partner regions and a study visit to three Flemish SMEs that have successfully used design for innovation.
For the hands-on workshop ‘Mapping Design Ecosystems’, project partners were joined by policymakers and key stakeholders from their regions. Design Ecosystem is a theoretical concept that helps to understand the interplay between elements in a network influencing the state of innovativeness. The analysis of actors and relations between them can inform targeted actions to improve performance of the ecosystem.
On the last day, the participants visited three Flemish companies that have accessed support scheme “SME Wallet” offered by Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship to introduce design-driven innovation. All three companies represented different industries (specialised furniture manufacturer, textile factory, piano manufacturer and distributor) and approaches to design and innovation.
For more information on the project “Desing4Innovation”, please visit the official website of the project. For KEPA’s activities in the context of the project, please click here.
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