Health care SMEs in the Baltic Sea Region the basis for a globally competitive health economy

The BSHR HealthPort project running since September 2010 has with success supported health care SMEs for the benefit of regional development and strengthened focus on the Baltic Sea Region health economy as a driver for global competitiviness.

Concrete business tools have been developed and tested and policy recommendations prepared gaining support from key stakeholders in the process. This promises well for the future of BSR health economy if we can keep the focus and gain even more momentum. BSHR HealthPort is part-financed by the EU Baltic Sea Region programme 2007-2013 and is now being finalized.

BSHR HealthPort aimed to (a) strengthen BSR health economy; (b) focus on the interactions between Health Service providers and SMEs in order to enhance innovation and (c) reduce health care costs and promote SME access to the BSR Health Care market.

The most immediate results of BSHR HealthPort are:

Preparation of an innovation agenda

An innovation agenda “Driving cross-sectoral innovation in health and life sciences” was prepared with both policy oriented recommendations and concrete suggestions for actions to be implemented in the coming years. Objectives of the innovation agenda are to:

•  Promote and increase the development and implementation of innovative products, technologies and services for health and life sciences

•  Accelerate market access for innovative products, technologies or services

•  Set up a framework for a sustainable innovation ecosystem in the BSR

•  Through innovation promote more efficient BSR health care systems

•  Promote collaborative BSR efforts to combat challenges to health and well-being

•  Spur macro-regional development and the creation of new jobs and businesses

Read more here
ScanBalt BioRegion Business Club as a sustainable triple helix shared and modular structure

ScanBalt BioRegion Business Club is proposed as a sustainable triple helix shared and modular structure for marketing, promotion and support of SMEs.

ScanBalt BioRegion Business Club will serve as an umbrella for a multitude of coordinated activities applying to shared visions and values for the development of ScanBalt BioRegion and utilizing a common communication and coordination structure. Otherwise the individual activities act independently.

Thereby it is based on the modus operandi which with succes has driven the development of ScanBalt BioRegion since 2001. Some of the benefits of the model are:

(1) the capacity to mobilize regional and national resources for trans-national innovation efforts linking widely different regions together in added value chains;

(2) the direct bottom-up involvement of innovation stakeholders;

(3) the capacity to quickly adapt to needs, demands and opportunities;

(4) an ultra-light cost-efficient basic structure financed by moderate member fees as low as 110 EUR/year for certain types of membership.

Read more about ScanBalt BioRegion here

Tools established for supporting early and mature innovations in ScanBalt BioRegion.

Business development was undertaken by initial BSR idea competitions followed by tailor made business support actions in order to bring products and services to the market.

In the 1^st Innovation Competition four business cases were selected as winners and they received support for early business development such as POC, business plan preparation, team building, clarifying market opportunity and meeting with potential customers.

In the 2^nd Innovation Competition the prize was targeted to more mature innovations that could benefit from support actions such as attracting private equity and venture capital financing and negotiation support with financiers. The 2^nd prize was shared between two winners.

The concept is to be an integrated part and module of ScanBalt BioRegion Business Club. Read more here

In addition the Accelerace Life and Nordic-Baltic Accelerace Investment Fund were promoted in order to establish them as BSR innovation structures. ScanBalt BioRegion tops the world in clinical medicine research, but we do not see enough startup proposals.

Accelerace Life (AL) is a potential instrument to address the problem and a special financing instrument, the Nordic-Baltic Accelerace Investment Fund (NBAIF) is on the drawing board to support the efforts. Read more here

ScanBalt Educational Platform (SBEP)

A major issue for BSR is the competitiveness of SME’s, and lack of the innovative capabilities of the health care organizations. Training to bring up the competence of the managements was brought out to be a key factor for the success of the SME’s and others.

Therefore, a concept for a web-based educational platform, the ScanBalt Educational Platform (SBEP) was developed. Such an e-learning platform should be combined with local mentoring in the courses too boost the regional development.

The mission of the SBEP is to increase the entrepreneurial attitude and environment and the innovation spirit, for and within health and life science in BSR. The needs for these activities are widely supported by the European Innovation agenda.

SBEP is to be an integrated module of ScanBalt BioRegion Business Club.

Read more here

Conclusion: Towards a competitive BSR health economy if key stakeholders are engaged

The ScanBalt strategy for 2012-2015 is entitled “Smart Growth and Specialization on Top of Europe towards EU 2020”. There is a clear line connecting the various projects since the beginning of ScanBalt BioRegion in 2001 to where we are today with BSHR HealthPort.

First the basic tools and structures of ScanBalt BioRegion (supported by Nordic Innovation Center) were established and followed by collecting and structuring the necessary knowledge about the region and its competencies (supported by EU FP 6).

The insight gained was used to propose basic decentralized mutual benefit models for collaboration and macro-regional added value chains (supported by EU FP 7 and Interreg lllB). The establishment of regional triple helix clusters was assisted where lacking and BSR health and bio economy was (and is) promoted under the brand name ScanBalt BioRegion.

An important moment came when the EU BSR strategy was proposed and ScanBalt Health Region became a flagship activity (priority area innovation).

Now ScanBalt BioRegion targets innovation. Our aim is to promote an BSR eco-system for innovation  with sustainable trans-national innovation platforms. Implementation has already begun and we hope to see the first collaborative trans-national innovation platforms in the next coming years.

However,  the success for the benefit of the BSR and the individual regions within it can only be ensured if the process is supported and undertaken by the many relevant key stakeholders from the private and public sectors, from various disciplines, regions and countries.

The BSHR HealthPort partners wish to acknowledge the many organizations and individuals who took part in BSHR HealthPort. Without access to their knowledge, experience and support the project would never have succeeded.

Contact:
Peter Frank, coordinator of BSHR HealthPort and General Secretary of ScanBalt, , tel +45 27141078.