Dr. Beata Kviatek appointed as high-level expert on innovation policies

Dr Beata Kviatek has been appointed by the Interreg Europe programme as a high-level expert to provide expertise on innovation policies to the Autonomous Region of the Azores in Portugal during the peer review session.

Innovation policy acts as a bridge, so to speak, between research and practice. With good innovation policies, a country or region creates an environment in which it becomes easier and more advantageous to bring new ideas to the market. With innovation policy, policymakers can remove barriers to innovation, such as expensive patents, market fragmentation and shortages of staff or skills. The objective is to achieve better cooperation between the public and private sectors, so that research results can be converted into services and products faster. This way, the region can remain competitive in the global market and improve people's quality of life.

Beata, together with several other high-level European experts, will help the host region to find solutions to its innovation policy challenges. The peer review process involves an intensive two-day peer-to-peer meeting, either online or onsite, with the host organisation and the stakeholders.

The high-level experts are selected by the Interreg Europe programme Managing Authority and the Policy Learning Platform through a very competitive process. The selected experts must meet the established high criteria for expertise and experience.

The peer review in the Autonomous Region of the Azores will focus on designing challenge-driven innovation policies for promoting university-industry collaboration. The international team of experts is asked to analyse the innovation challenge at the host region and provide recommendations on addressing the issue to the region. During the interactive meetings experts will meet the key decision makers and main stakeholders from the host region, including the representatives from the University of the Azores, the three Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the Association of Municipalities of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, the two Science and Technology Parks, the Institute of Technological Innovation of the Azores, the Agricultural Federation of the Azores, the Azores Fisheries Federation, the tourist association, the Regional Health Directorate, the Azores Mission Structure for Space, and Regional Directorate of Culture.

Beata’s appointment is not only a personal recognition, but also organsational – it shows the innovativeness of the organisation where the expert is working. Dr Beata Kviatek holds the Jean Monnet Chair in Sustainable EU Economy and is the Project Leader of Interreg Europe project “UNLOCK – Unlocking Green Hydrogen Economy for SMEs in European Regions”.