Interactive RIS3 on-line platform Riga Planning Region
Are you working in the field of regional planning, business development and RIS3?
Do you need to monitor ongoing economic processes of change in your region and to identify certain growth areas – preferably without much staff and time effort?
What if you could do it now, right away and with only one tool?
Riga Planning region, a regional development authority and Smart specialization strategy implementer on a regional level, developed an interactive RIS3 analytical online platform that uses spatially disaggregated socio-economic phenomena and data of companies and industries to graph not only the existing ecosystem of the Region of Riga. By mapping all companies (exceeding a yearly turnover of 150 000 EUR), their products, services and added value to specific RIS3 priority sectors (instead of merely quantify companies within specific sectors), the online tool allows as well to
- illustrate the location of real clusters of economic activity and their “weight” within the ecosystem
- indicate current strengths and weaknesses of existing RIS3 ecosystems
- identify economic development trends in the region
- and ultimately help to develop suggestions for certain sector growth policies on regional and local level.
In Riga, the newly developed tool and its integration into the organisation’s daily routine already assisted regional and municipal staff members with more practice-related knowledge on RIS3, its local implementation and potential growth and/or support areas. Furthermore, the tool has been successfully supported the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development of Latvia as part of the current administrative reform of Latvia scheduled to be finished in 2021.
By adding and comparing various and more recent socio-economic data on different layers (and beyond the RIS3), Riga Planning Region intends to strategically develop the tool into a more dynamic representation of economic processes which further strengthen the organisational capacities of RIS3 specialists and support the regional decision-making processes.
The RIS3 analytical online platform has been developed as part of the Interreg Baltic Sea region programme project EmpInno and will be further used and developed within the succeccor project EmpInno Monitor S3. The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development of Latvia supported Riga Planning Region by providing the state co-financing to implement the EmpInno Monitor S3 project but also by becoming an official associated partner of Riga Planning Region in the project.
Compiled by: Ilgvars Francis, EmpInno Monitor S3 project expert at Riga Planning Region. Riga, 4 December, 2019