Summary

Moving from industrial to knowledge society entails creating new development models based on innovation and integration of research, education and industry, which represent he edges of the “knowledge triangle”. Particularly, the integration of regional governments, industries and academic or research institutions is increasingly gaining ground, thus favouring the development of innovation processes.

Based on the NOVAREGIO project “Innovative Network for coordinated actions on RTD policies at regional level” involving 8 partners from 7 European Regions, the handbook looks at the RTD and innovation policies that have been implemented by the partner regions, by adopting a benchmarking exercise building on the “Benchmarking Consulting Practice” model developed by IRCs. This exercise draws the lessons learned from the successfully implemented RTD and innovation policy benchmarks and aims at exploiting the general knowledge by exchanging experiences and analysing benchmark transferability possibilities. In this context, eleven “best practices” were identified.