RICARDA – What Is It About?
RICARDA aims to transfer the method of Intellectual Capital Reporting to the level of regional innovation networks or clusters.
Initiating and supporting networks between firms and research, training and intermediary institutions is a popular approach in regional research, technology and development policy. It is the rationale of such cluster policies that joint resources, knowledge transfer and collective learning can foster innovation and increase regional competitiveness. Intangible assets or intellectual capital have proven to be important factors for the success of network approaches. This includes competencies and motivation of member organisations and their representatives, modes of collaboration and the network's embeddedness.
RICARDA will support cluster managers and policy makers by developing tools for Intellectual Capital Reporting. The concept of Intellectual Capital Reporting has been developed and applied in management sciences in the last several years to capture innovation-relevant intangibles at the level of organisations.
RICARDA's Objectives
- Improvement of regional RTD policy by developing, applying and disseminating an Intellectual Capital Reporting methodology for European regions
- Preparation of Intellectual Capital Reports (ICRs) for four clusters with different specialisations in the collaborating regions
- Development of an ICR based RTD policy learning framework within these four regions
- Interregional policy comparison on ICR and development of recommendations
- Identifying success factors (especially in the dimensions of structural and relational capital) and their interactions for regional RTD policy
RICARDA's Work Programme
In an initial phase of the project Intellectual Capital Reports will be jointly drafted by regional institutions, cluster managers and specialized research institutions for differing pilot clusters in four European regions. The results will contribute to identifying opportunities for improving private and public engagement in R&D activities. In a second phase the potential for a wider use of ICR-based policy learning will be explored with regional stakeholders and also in a comparative perspective. Project results will be disseminated in a manual on a European methodology for the use and application of ICR for regional innovation networks.
RICARDA is a Coordination Action within the Sixth Framework Programme and part of Knowledge Regions 2. The project runs from January 2006 until December 2007.