The smart guide to service innovation : how to better capitalise on service innovation for regional structural change and industrial modernisation

The guide aims to illustrate how strategic regional public support can offer small and medium-sized enterprises a favourable environment and support them to better capitalise on service innovation in view of staying competitive in global value chains that include both manufacturing and services. As this is the focus, the guide will neither cover all forms of innovation nor all aspects of regional innovation strategies that may be supported at regional level. It should rather be seen as a practical toolbox with ideas and fresh input from the work of regional stakeholders. The objective is to look at what environment, institutions and support tools can be put in place in order to facilitate a transformation of regional industrial structures and sectors "through" service innovation. This smart guide is mainly filled with examples of potential instruments that can be used in implementing regional strategies in this direction. Many of the examples have received co-financing from the Cohesion Policy Funds, whereas some have not. They do, however, all illustrate how Cohesion Policy Funds could be used to support a more strategic use of service innovation. The guide complements the Policy Handbook by the Working Group of EU Member States experts on cultural and creative industries on "How to strategically use the EU support programmes, including Structural Funds, to foster the potential of culture for local, regional and national development and the spill-over effects on the wider economy?".