The project focuses on mass customisation, and the possibility to integrate IT technology in work wear, as well as to enhance supply chain management. The objective is to develop the work wear clothing industry in the Baltic Sea Region and prepare it to meet competition from new producers and imports from other parts of the world.

The project seeks to enhance blue growth opportunities based on increased capacity of the Baltic Sea Region to implement research and innovation strategies for smart specialisation (so called RIS3). This project is focusing on the blue value chain of Machinery & Technology, Life Science & Blue Medicine and Energy.

The project’s aim is to increase the capacity of design centres, professionals and lecturers in ecodesign, leading to an advanced performance in non-technological innovation. Applied, EcoDesign can have an impact on the circular economy model in the Baltic Sea Region by reducing carbon emissions and increasing employment.

The project enhances international cooperation of universities, research institutes, large scale research infrastructures and industry nation- and region wide via improved access to analytical research instruments.

The project promotes empowerment in social service provisions in rural areas in the Baltic Sea Region. The project aims at improving the social service infrastructure by empowering end-users to participate in service design and delivery.

The project fosters the implementation and improvement of research and innovation strategies for smart specialisation in medium sized cities in the Baltic Sea Region.

The project objective is to build on the advancements of digital technologies and the potential of convergence between digital audio-visual content production industries, such as film and videogames and the education, tourism and health sectors. Techniques of audio-visual, interactive, participatory and multiplatform storytelling and forms of gamification can be used in service of the three sectors. There is a momentum for such inter-sector cooperation to open up the rapidly evolving avenue of ‘crossinnovation’.

The number of bone fractures and linked health disorders are going to increase in the future due to an ageing society. The project will set up local registries and link them together in one transnational data registry. Hospitals and companies in the Baltic Sea region will use the registry to identify needs and potentials for innovation within fracture management.

The project will foster the realisation of common higher education and research area in the Baltic Sea Region, and its research and innovation performance. The overall aim is to support the realisation of the European Research Area via intensified cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region, increase the research and innovation performance and strengthen the political ownership in the field of science policy.

The project will give furniture companies inspiration and a common identity, it will enhance their knowledge and competences, and increase their capability to work in a transnational environment. Consequently it will enhance their capacity of innovation to create smart products adapted to senior needs, making the companies more innovative and competitive. This is a unique opportunity to raise seniors’ comfort and level of safety and at the same time enhance capacity of innovation.

The project aims at developing the fruit growing potential in the Baltic Sea Region to secure the availability of healthy, high quality fruit and fruit related products through research driven innovations.

The project focuses on bio- and circular economy as a cross-sectoral priority field of smart specialization in the Baltic Sea Region. The policy approach of open innovation based ecosystems calls for new tools of innovation management and follow up systems. The main objective is to improve competences and capabilities of innovation actors to apply a transnational approach to the implementation of their regional and national smart specialisation strategies.

Business intermediaries, owner-managers and universities jointly develop and apply innovative tools and methods for business counselling that respond to the specific needs of owner-managers of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Owner-managers of SMEs tend to be driven by different considerations than SMEs run by employed managers, for example, their own family’s well-being, the employees’ situations and lack of time for developing their own managerial skills.

The project attempts to help the public sector in leading smart specialisation processes in their regions and to connect innovation networks across regions. It helps find solutions tackling the fragmentation of regional systems of innovation looking for entrepreneurial discoveries within such topics as blue growth, bio and circular economy, advanced production methods and technologies for energy efficiency.

Many small and medium sized enterprises face a crucial moment when the business gets transferred, e.g. when the owner retires and a new one takes over. Every year, more jobs are lost due to failed business transfers than new jobs are created in start-ups. The project improves the competences of business support organisations in terms of business transfers. They jointly design and apply innovative tools to better support upcoming business successors.

Strokes, obesity, and heart and lung diseases are among the health challenges in Europe. This implies a new service development approach in the public health sector. The project helps public health authorities in cities around the Baltic Sea to better promote healthy lifestyle by developing and testing a model that public health authorities can apply in prevention intervention planning. The model combines methods such as focus groups, motivational interviewing, eHealth applications, chatbots and health games.

The goal of the project is to support smart, sustainable and inclusive growth of the bioeconomy in rural areas of the Baltic Sea region. RDI2CluB aims to help innovation actors apply EU smart specialisation approaches to their specific field and region. The transnational partnership and network of the project plans to, for instance, support new business development in rural areas and create bio-business hubs to improve innovation management.

The project establishes a network of underground laboratories across the Baltic Sea region, which works as an open innovation platform facilitating scientific technology transfer and best practices exchange. It improves access of small and medium sized enterprises to the laboratories and exploits potential for incubating innovative businesses in various fields, e.g. mining, tunnel construction, radiation shielding systems testing, and thermal energy production.

ProVaHealth stimulates cooperation among health laboratories in the Baltic Sea region, which test new products and technologies in real-life contexts. The project shares best practices to improve business models of the labs and helps open access to the services for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) from the entire Baltic Sea region to ensure health innovation and growth of health SMEs with global potential.

Biomarkers measure cellular, biochemical or molecular changes in human tissues, cells or fluids, and contribute to future diagnostics and treatment. The development of biomarkers is time consuming and expensive, requiring the involvement of industry from early stages to better direct the research. The BIC platform facilitates knowledge and best practice exchange, offering tools that support the various phases of a commercialization process and maturity assessment.

No electronic product can be successfully placed in global markets if it does not conform with international standards. This typically requires extensive testing of product prototypes. In the project, eight universities from the Baltic Sea region set up an innovation support network to provide testing and consultation for small and medium sized enterprises in the electronics sector during early product development.

There is a growing interest in consumer clean technology, which is about reducing the environmental burden of consumption and is related to resource scarcity, rising energy and fuel costs, digitalisation and automatisation. The project helps exploit arising business opportunities in consumer clean technology for small and medium sized enterprises, start-ups and intermediaries in the Baltic Sea region by shaping models for networking, partnerships and cultural cooperation.

Business incubator organisations are crucial supporters for entrepreneurs, start-ups and small and medium sized enterprises that drive economic growth and create jobs. In the project, incubators from all countries around the Baltic Sea work together to improve and strengthen their management and support capacity, i.e. to jointly nurture new skills, help create new companies, and to support in opening up new markets.

The project aims to boost transnational cooperation among industry, the research & development sector, and authorities in employing smart specialisation strategies in regions in the eastern parts of the Baltic Sea region. It promotes mutual learning, sharing best practices and translating smart specialisation strategies into practical joint actions of small and medium sized enterprises.

Since 2014, the satellites and sensors of the European Copernicus programme have delivered Earth observation data free of charge to anyone. The wealth of data holds tremendous potential for new services in the environmental, transport, energy and other sectors. The project qualifies regional science and technology parks in the Baltic Sea region in running tailored acceleration programmes for small and medium sized enterprises in the emerging Earth Observation market.

Games are the most dynamic creative industry worldwide but business support is often unspecific or targeted at communications technology or media. The project prepares business incubators to effectively support game start-ups. It tests how gaming can be transferred to other industries such as the health sector. It also initiates a change of the business framework to make it more favourable for the game industry.

Local food producers still rely mostly on direct contacts to consumers as they often have difficulties in reaching catering, food processing and retail sectors that tend to rely on large food supply chains. The project aims to establish a business to business distribution model that supports local food networks in rural areas of ten countries in the Baltic Sea region and to ensure smooth and short supply chains, opportunities for growth, and improved business performance.

A traditional procurement model does not consider re-use or recycling of purchased goods or services. The project promotes a circular procurement model, which takes into account the lifecycle of products throughout the supply chain. The development of tools, exchange of best practices, training and building capacity among procurers, suppliers and policy makers for circular products stimulates the development of new business models.

The project helps speed up the Baltic Sea region’s transition to a single digital market. Three common challenges are covered: uptake of information and communication technologies in the business sector, innovation and interoperability of public services, and cooperation and coordination of digital policies on the macro-regional level. Industrial small and medium sized enterprises, industry associations and policy makers are enabled to push for a faster uptake of digital solutions.

The project helps regions in nine countries to apply research and innovation strategies for smart specialisation (RIS3) by sharing best practices and knowledge of EU RIS3 experts (Committee of Regions, EU Joint Research Centre) and co-creating concepts for the RIS3 implementation. The project focuses on active healthy ageing, digitalisation in smart city, climate change and circular economy.

Innovative businesses such as ship design, marine engineering and biotechnology require access to large scale computing to process large quantities of data. This access is currently limited to global enterprises and large research centres. The project BalticLSC creates a supercomputing environment comprising hardware prototypes, software tools and application recommendations. It offers these services to small and medium sized enterprises for new product development. In this way, small research centres can use their computing resources more efficiently.

The Creative Ports project brings together public authorities and business support organisations, cultural institutes and researchers to stimulate the internationalisation of the cultural and creative sectors. The majority of design, art, fashion, publishing, audio visual and gaming companies in the Baltic Sea region are medium-sized and often lack the networks to access international markets. Creative Ports provides knowledge, facilitates exchange and develops tools to train and connect business support organisations with public authorities.

The INforM project provides support to small and medium sized mechatronics and mechanical engineering companies in the ongoing digital transformation process. The continuous digitalisation of value chains called Industry 4.0 brings with it great challenges for smaller companies. The project plans to enable companies to benefit from the trend towards smart factories, which operate mainly based on intelligent, IT and web-based processes.

Cities in the Baltic Sea region are challenged by emerging societal and demographic changes and a growing need for sustainable development of neighbourhoods. Active co-creation among citizens and between citizens and authorities can be a way to overcome increasing exclusion of socially sensitive groups, such as the elderly and minors, and to advance Baltic Sea region social innovation. The UrbCulturalPlanning project uses cultural events and gaming methods to engage people into urban social innovation, and to compile a toolbox with good practices for other cities.

The Healthy Boost project addresses the health burden of city residents due to unhealthy lifestyles. Cities such as Poznan, Klaipeda, Jelgava, Tartu and Turku experiment with different methods of community participation, health learning or cross-sectoral cooperation. The main objective of the project is to make urban policies for health and well-being more innovative, more effective and more integrated. This includes work on cross-sectoral cooperation with potential to be used in other fields as well.

The InnoCAPE project designs a cooperation model to develop a digital innovation ecosystem in the Baltic Sea region by exploiting the potential of the continuous digitalisation of value chains called Industry 4.0. The project helps public authorities create favourable conditions for digital innovation hubs (DIHs) that serve as intermediary bodies bringing together Research & Development and industry into digital industrial platforms. By bridging existing gaps, DIHs can efficiently implement Industry 4.0 policies, contribute to a better connected digital single market, and improve competitiveness of the region.

The project promotes industrial symbiosis, a concept for sustainable regional development, across the Baltic Sea region. Industrial symbiosis means to connect companies from different industries in order to use one company’s waste, in the form of e.g. energy, ingredients or materials, as a resource for the next company. The project establishes peer-to-peer exchange for industrial symbiosis practitioners. It develops new business and finance models and sets up the BSR Industrial Symbiosis Council as a platform for dialogue and policy learning.

The silver economy related to products and services aiming at the elderly creates considerable business opportunities. The OSIRIS project designs an innovative cooperation model to improve smart specialisation approaches and market uptake of innovative products and services dedicated to the elderly, e.g. in the health sector. Smart Silver Labs in five regions around the Baltic Sea support innovation actors in generating new silver products and services viable to the market. The project sets up a digital hub to ensure exchange of new knowledge and business schemes across the borders.

Participatory budgeting is a process of democratic decision-making in which ordinary people take part in preparing and adopting a municipal or public budget. In the Baltic Sea region, only a few municipalities have applied participatory budgeting to date. A typical type of citizen in such a process is male, politically active, well-educated, and 35-65 years old. The objective of EmPaci is to get more municipalities involved and mobilise different types of citizens by building municipal capacities, transnational clusters and municipality-citizen cooperation.