Strasbourg (F), 17th February 2009.

In this, the European Year of Creativity and Innovation, the Assembly of European Regions (AER) is once again inviting Europe’s most innovative regions to compete for AER’s Innovation Award.

At AER’s General Assembly last November, the 2008 award was presented to the Dutch province of Noord-Braband. Onno Hoes, Regional Minister, said: “I am personally so proud that this project, built in the spirit of support to innovation and entrepreneurship, is awarded by AER. It brings together civil society, companies and local and regional stakeholders to the crucial question of ageing in our populations. This award is not an end in itself; on the contrary, it motivates us to go on. Our region will develop more initiatives on the ground and get even more stakeholders involved, in order to spread the benefits of innovation to all our citizens.”

AER’s Innovation Award aims to reward regional authorities that have stimulated, fostered and implemented innovation in their territory; it also identifies and promotes best practices while demonstrating how regions can contribute to regional economic welfare.

The initiative was first launched in 2006 in collaboration with the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia (I). In that year the award was presented to the Region of Aragón (E) for the project ‘Innov100: Starting Innovation Activities in 100 Companies’, Vorarlberg (A) for its ‘Office for Future Related Issues’ project, and Steiermark (A) for the ‘Regional Internationalisation Strategy’ project. In 2007, the award was presented at AER’s General Assembly by EC President José Manuel Barroso to Lower Austria (A) for continuous improvement of the Regional Innovation System (RIS NOE); second prize went to Valencia (E) for its Regional University – Industry Strategies Network (RUSINET), and third prize went to Upper Austria (A) for its Strategic Program “Innovative Upper Austria 2010”.

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