Deliverable 4.3 Phase 2 piloting report

This document is prepared in the context of the COOrdinating and Piloting actions towards ERA-hubs as inTer- and intra-regional Ecosystems for knowledge production (COOPERATE) project. This report presents the outcomes and insights derived from the second phase of the piloting activities. The primary aim of this piloting phase is to test the ERA Hubs definition in the two regions identified through the Call for Champions. To this end, this report presents the pilot regions and their use cases and puts forth the insights related to the testing of the ERA Hubs definitions and framework and its associated tools. This information gathered in this report serves to further the understanding and testing of the ERA Hubs definition that is proposed as a part of the COOPERATE project in two further piloting regions identified through the Call for Champions, notably the Centre-Val de Loire region in France, and the Łódzkie region in Poland. The use case related to the Centre-Val de Loire pilot region is centred on a thorough analysis of its renewable hydrogen ecosystem and involved in the hydrogen value chain of the region. As a transit region located in the middle of France, Centre-Val de Loire has a number of major logistics trade routes running through it, connecting heavy industry stakeholders, often situated in other regions. Due to this, the region has a unique opportunity to decarbonise a substantial amount of this traffic with its existing local expertise provided by a lively ecosystem of players across the quadruple helix. There are varying degrees of knowledge valorisation efforts targeted, depending on the actors and their position in the value chain. The activities are centred around the University of Orléans together with industry stakeholders. There is a clear interest and willingness to continue strengthening collaboration with academia and other stakeholders, thereby creating a small ecosystem involving industry, university and the region. Interaction and collaboration between the ecosystem actors seem to be present, but there is willingness to structure and foster this collaboration further. For the Łódzkie region, the University of Lodz played a leading role by coordinating the participation. The circular economy ecosystem was the focus of the use case, whereby the predominating industry in Łódzkie was the textile industry until the 20th century, which then later collapsed to be replaced by other industries, including power, metallurgy, machinery, construction, pharmaceutical and agri-food. Now in the region, circular economy is dominated by topics related to natural resource availability related to lignite and waste generation and domestic material consumption. The University of Lodz plays a central role in coordinating the Forum Circulare ecosystem through its academic strengths and infrastructures – such as the Centre for Sustainable Development – to actively engage local stakeholders. Initiatives led by the university and its partners align with broader national energy security goals include, among others, joint projects with businesses and public authorities, demonstrating that initial coordination mechanisms are in place in the Łódzkie region. These efforts show that there is a strong basis for scaling up circular economy initiatives and integrating a regional innovation system. These use cases and case studies shed light on the way in which collaboration in ecosystems is structured towards knowledge valorisation, highlighting some challenges and priorities among them. Notable among them are governance mechanisms to foster collaboration, including clear policy and strategy guidance to enable ecosystems and value chains, as well as access to innovation support and funding, and weak collaboration with civil society. These aspects are scheduled to be further discussed at the COOPERATE Co-creation session in May 2025, where the monitoring framework and policy recommendations will be discussed together with the testing of the tools arising from COOPERATE including the COOPERATE Self- Assessment (SELF-ASSESSMENT), the COOPERATE Playbook (PLAYBOOK) and COOPERATE Toolbox (TOOLBOX), which were developed to assess and help progress the maturity of Regional & Innovation (R&I) ecosystems.