Questionnaire for “Innovation for sustainability and economic growth in the Black Sea” Workshop

Using the existing experience gained in previous projects, and in collaboration with industry through linked marine innovation clusters and partners’ existing links to private sector, Black Sea CONNECT will identify the innovation needs and opportunities for healthy and sustainable use of the Black Sea while achieving economic growth by adopting emerging technologies offered especially by the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

A critical step for this purpose will be bringing stakeholders from science and research, policy-making, industry, business, and investment together at a thematic workshop or conference on “innovation for sustainability and economic growth in the Black Sea” to enhance communication and collaboration.

The objectives of this workshop will be :

  • To identify innovation needs and opportunities including potential gaps and barriers
  • To achieve economic growth by adopting emerging technologies

While addressing these objectives, our  approach will be the following :

  • Learning from the “others” to organize in the Black Sea region;
  • Defining next steps to start organizing the Black Sea innovation ecosystem.

Based on the analysis of the local context and the Black Sea SRIA priorities, the workshop will raise awareness and build capacities on:

  • The clustering approach: Enhance communication and collaboration between stakeholders from science and research, policymakers, industry, business and investment to generate innovative products and services.
  • Share good practices to support innovation adaptable to the Black Sera context.

It will be based on a comprehensive analysis of innovation needs and opportunities for healthy and sustainable use of the Black Sea while achieving economic growth by adopting emerging technologies offered especially by the Fourth Industrial Revolution[1]. The workshop will also try to identify which are the potential gaps and barriers of all sorts (legal, financial, etc) in the successful development of Blue Growth in the Black Sea countries and will try to find best practice examples that could help smoothen the path forward.

The workshop will pave the way to provide the roadmap for marine innovation and technology transfer to the Black Sea countries, gathering together stakeholders from science and research, policymaker, industry, business and investment and exchanging best practices in between European advanced marine innovation clusters and nascent Black Sea clusters and innovation actors to achieve innovation for blue economy.

To map the innovation needs and potential gaps and barriers, Black Sea CONNECT CSA has launched an online questionnaire in all Black Sea countries targeting the business networks/ actors operating in the Black Sea countries. The questionnaire will feed into the content of the workshop that will take place in early 2022.

The questionnaire is available in all Black Sea languages and English.

[1] http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Harnessing_4IR_Oceans.pdf