{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2006-702/annex/division-1/division-1.2/division-1.2.2",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2006-702/annex/division-1/division-1.2/division-1.2.2.json",
  "legislation": "eudn/2006/702",
  "legislation_title": "Council Decision of 6 October 2006 on Community strategic guidelines on cohesion (2006/702/EC)",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2006-702",
  "path": "annex/division/1/division/1.2/division/1.2.2",
  "kind": "division",
  "number": "1.2.2",
  "heading": "Facilitate innovation and promote entrepreneurship",
  "text": "Innovation is the result of complex and interactive processes, including the ability of enterprises to connect to complementary knowledge from other market players, organisations and institutions.\nInvestments in innovation represent an overarching priority for cohesion policy under both the Convergence and Regional competitiveness and employment programmes. Their co-financing should be a major priority in the regions covered under the latter, where limited financial resources need to be concentrated so as to reach critical mass and generate a leverage effect.\nThe main objective should be to foster a business climate which promotes the production, dissemination and use of new knowledge by firms. In order to create efficient regional innovation systems, economic, social and political actors need to be brought into contact with the leading edge of technology and business practice in the world, beyond the national or local levels. In this respect, cooperation should also be sought with the Innovation Relay centres and the Euro-Info-Centres which are financed under the CIP, especially in the field of trans-national technology and diffusion of information.\nStart-up companies, particularly those linked to RTD, need to be supported with the aim of developing partnerships with research institutions based on a longer-term vision and clear market orientation. Cohesion policy should seek to compensate for market failure that hampers innovation and entrepreneurship. Actions should seek to build on existing poles of activity in order to exploit regional potential for RTD and to foster networking and technological cooperation within and between regions.\nPublic authorities should ensure that research institutions, the private sector and the public sector exploit to the full the potential synergies between them.\nIn terms of method, economic development strategies would be improved by the collection of data on existing innovative activities in the regions concerned, for example, on private patenting or on the nature, scope and development potential of existing clusters of innovative activities, including those which involve both private and public research institutions. The Community Innovation Surveys and the European Innovation Scoreboard are also helpful in this regard.\nThe guidelines for action under this heading are the following:\nMaking regional RTD innovation and education supply more efficient and accessible to firms, in particular SMEs, for example by establishing poles of excellence, bringing together high technology SMEs around research and technological institutions, or by developing and creating regional clusters around large companies.\nProviding business support services to enable enterprises, and in particular SMEs, to increase competitiveness and to internationalise, in particular by seizing the opportunities created by the internal market. Business services should prioritise the exploitation of synergies (for example, technology transfer, science parks, ICT communication centres, incubators and related services, cooperation with clusters) and give more traditional support in the areas of management, marketing, technical support, recruitment, and other professional and commercial services.\nEnsuring full exploitation of European strengths in the area of eco-innovations. Eco-innovations should be promoted, together with the improvement of SME practices through the introduction of environmental management systems. By investing in this area now, EU businesses will be in a strong position in the near future when other regions appreciate the need for such technologies. This is an area with a clear link to the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme.\nPromoting entrepreneurship and facilitating the creation and development of new firms. Emphasis should also be placed on promoting spin-out and spin-off companies from research institutions or firms using a variety of techniques (for example, awareness raising; prototyping; tutoring and the provision of managerial and technological support to potential entrepreneurs).\nIt is important to ensure that companies, including SMEs, can make commercial use of research results.\nBusiness services should preferably be delivered by the private sector or by mixed public-private organisations. The services should be top-class, readily available, easy to access and responsive to the needs of SMEs. The quality of the services should be defined and monitored and there should be coherence between service providers, e.g. by establishing public-private partnerships and one-stop shops.\nAdministrative procedures are often too complex. Information and initial support should be available from a network of one-stop shops, which could provide the interface between the public sector and the grant applicant; this should include the various actions cofinanced by cohesion policy. These providers should have competence for the full range of State aids — independently of national or regional responsibilities — and targets for the efficiency of their operation which are monitored regularly.\nWhenever the circumstances are appropriate, tailored support should be made available to specific categories of business (e.g. start-ups or recently transferred companies) or entrepreneurs (e.g. young people, women, older workers or those from ethnic minority communities). Entrepreneurship education should also be encouraged in schools.",
  "extent": "E+W+S+N.I.",
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudn/2006/702/annex/division/1/division/1.2/division/1.2.2",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-11-01T15:17:27.846378+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}