Regional Economics & Innovation Dynamics Consulting SPRL

20/12/2025

As we approach the end of the year and the "festive period", it's important to remember that for too many families and individuals, "festivities" are difficult to pay for and even putting good food on the table is a struggle.

Rather than spend money on sending out 'Christmas cards', we prefer to donate and offer a decent festive meal to some of those in need here in Belgium.

We encourage everyone to give a little to support those in need and bring some light to the winter darkness

https://restosducoeur.be/fr/

Restos du Coeur de Belgique

26/11/2025

In this episode, Ricardo Miguéis is joined by Alasdair Reid, economist and long-standing contributor to Europe’s innovation policy framework. Alasdair has been closely involved with the European Innovation Scoreboard since its origin, overseeing key elements of innovation policy benchmarking, and currently serves as coordinator for the 2024-2027 period. His perspective reflects a deep, system-level understanding of how innovation indicators are developed, interpreted, and translated into policy.

The Insider - Season 2, Episode 2 "European Innovation Scoreboard 2025 Explained: Bridging Data and Policy with Alasdair Reid" Season 2 continues with a topic that sits right at the crossroads of evidence and strategy in European research: the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) 2025. We talk a lot...

29/10/2024

Pleased to be working with Associates on this survey for Highlands and Islands Enterprise - a few days left for community organisations to reply.

📢 Last chance to have your say - survey closes on 31 October!

We’re now close to hitting 300 responses from community organisations and social enterprises for the Our Place, Our Prosperity survey. That’s fantastic – thanks to everyone who has completed it so far. We’d really like to reach even more! Can you help?

If you’re involved in a community project tell us: what keeps you motivated, who are the people who help you, how are you keeping local assets or heritage alive, what stands in the way of achieving your community goals?

The survey is open to all community groups, including community councils. Please spread the word with organisations and friends. Every response helps.

👉 www.hie.co.uk/ourplaceourprosperity

28/09/2023

What can be learnt from practical cases of adopting challenge-led (mission) approaches to ? During 2022, a European Commission JRC funded expert team worked with the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic to learn from their experience of designing and implementing two missions within the national S3 strategy.

A key lesson from the action-research conducted is that the successful design and implementation of transformative missions in the framework of S3 requires a patient investment in new capacities and policy learning.

The report, co-authored by Alasdair Reid with Michal Miedzinski and Fred Steward is now available at : https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC134466

Thanks to Tomáš Holinka Eva Brozova and all Czech colleagues for their dedicated support and collaboration.

Key takeaways include:

Policy makers need to actively encourage and nurture place-based bottom-up innovation collaborations aligned with national and EU level strategic
goals. Improving vertical coherence of R&I policies will enhance their impact. The deployment of mission goals at sub-national level requires further support with the option of piloting and demonstrating interventions in several regions that can then be scaled to a national (or EU) level.

There is a need to establish multi-level governance mechanisms to orchestrate and mediate alignment and tensions between bottom up and
top-down mechanisms of prioritisation of R&I policy (e.g. bodies bringing together national and regional actors; instruments supporting local missions requesting inter-regional collaboration). Policy makers need to actively encourage and nurture place-based bottom-up innovation collaborations aligned with national and EU level strategic goals.

The shift towards transformative innovation policies, including challenge-led missions, requires a different approach to monitoring and evaluation
(M&E). The M&E framework should be based on the shared understanding of theory of change underpinning the policy vision. Indicators should be inspired by systemic approaches elaborating linkages and dependencies between SDGs.

The report provides a practical roadmapping framework for S3 missions designed around three layers:
■ Mission objective and transition pathways
■ Innovation pathways
■ Policy and governance roadmap

27/09/2023

Launch of the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions & Cities report on Enhancing Rural Innovation in - https://www.oecd.org/publications/enhancing-rural-innovation-in-scotland-united-kingdom-33b8c803-en.htm

Michelle Marshalian made a great presentation of the key findings of the report to which I contributed.

Some key messages that dispel the myths that rural areas "don't innovate" :

- rural areas impact positively aggregate productivity, in part, due to their innovation absorption capacity
- innovation happens everywhere and rural areas are rich sources of innovation
- rural innovation policy should focus on both start-ups AND scaling existing (often family owned) businesses.

Rural innovation depends on getting the framework conditions right including quality housing, transport links and digital connectivity. Social innovation that helps towns and rural areas provide a caring and welcoming environment is a key driver.

Great insights that can be picked up on by The Scottish Government - HIE - South of Scotland Enterprise and Scottish Enterprise in implementing the programme for Government and the Scottish National innovation strategy 2023 to 2033.

05/10/2022

We are delighted to have been selected as part of a framework consortium led by Diffley Partnership (Mark Diffley) along with Alison Hunter and 4-consulting (Richard Marsh) to provide research services for Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and South of Scotland Enterprise.

The research requirements will influence or inform strategy and policy development within the agencies and across the wider public sector in the two Scottish regions.

Photos: Steòrnabhagh (Stornoway) (March 2022) in the HIE region and Jedburgh Castle in the SOSE region (July 2022).

21/04/2022

How should future funding instruments for Belgian science be optimised by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office ? With our partners at IDEA Consult and Claire Nauwelaers, we examined this complex question during the last quarter 2021 and first quarter 2022.

The research excellence built up in three core areas over the last decade provides a basis for focusing efforts and further development of strong Belgian research platforms linked to European partnerships and research infrastructures.

https://www.reidconsulting.eu/projects/belspo-portfolio

04/01/2022

In 2021, we travelled (virtually) from the South Caucasus to South America, we met creative people from different horizons who all share an aspiration to innovate for the common good.

In 2022, we will continue to apply our expertise to help you generate innovative policy solutions for a sustainable future.

28/12/2021

After a year that has led to loss and suffering for many people, whether it was due to the pandemic or the terrible floods that hit Belgium and neighbouring countries in July, bringing home the reality of the climate crisis, we decided again not to send greeting cards but to donate to a charitable organisation that provides support to those in poverty.

This year our donation went to the Resto du Coeur Belgium which provides hot meals and other services to those without a roof over their head or in poverty.

If you would also like to support this worthy cause follow the link below: https://www.restosducoeur.be/en/help-us/make-a-donation

We wish all our clients, partners and colleagues a healthy and successful 2022.

24/11/2021

Smart Systems of Innovation for Smart Places: Challenges in deploying digital platforms for co-creation and data-intelligence.

Free access to the article for next 50 days via this link:

The effect of digital transformation towards more efficient, place-based and bottom-up innovation policies at different spatial scales has proven sign…