ERA_FABRIC | Framing And Bridging Regional research and Innovation ecosystems Capacities for a renewed ERA

Overarching aim of the ERA_FABRIC project is to define, structure, populate and validate the “interconnected knowledge space” foreseen by the EU ERA Hubs initiative (COM 2020 628 final). Underlying challenges: We understand, and adopt as a structuring principle for the community to be built and cultivated during the project, that a new “interconnected knowledge space” will be created by the EU ERA Hubs initiative, having three distinct, and intertwined, dimensions, all of them relevant for policy making:

• ERA Hubs as Knowledge Ecosystems: fostering the dynamic interaction of R&D and innovation actors at regional and multiregional levels, taking into account the different knowledge and cultural contexts and the alignment of research foci and industrial needs;
• ERA Hubs as Multi Stakeholder Platforms: bringing together the representatives of the various involved interest groups in a seamless and uninterrupted discussion and deliberation on strategic priorities, actions and results evaluation;
• ERA Hubs as a Policy Co Creation Toolbox: a transformative set of measures and tools operating in a “middle ground” needing to be configured as a distinct space from both the EU and the MS/Regional levels, historically presided over by “ad hoc” sets of instruments (e.g. Framework Programmes for R&I, Structural and Investment Funds, Interregional and Cross Border Cooperation Programmes).

It is the consortium’s vision and assumption that the 3 above dimensions should be presided over and made interoperable, in order for the ERA Hubs initiative to become path breaking and impactful at broad EU level.