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All regions in the Slovak Republic have received a support form the European Commission under the Framework Programme for development of Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS). The projects are implemented by the Self-Governing regions in co-operation with the universities, regional development agencies and experienced consultant in order to develop the innovation strategy according to the EC methodology and to include the innovation issue in the regional development plans.

EC co-ordinates the development of RIS projects under the IRE network (http://www.innovating-regions.org). Since 1994, more than 120 European regions have received support for carrying out Regional Innovation Strategy projects from the European Commission. These projects aim to support regions in developing regional innovation strategies that enhance regional innovation and competitiveness through optimising innovation policies and infrastructure.

The main objective of the project RIS is to develop a strategy of a regional innovation development for the period of next 10 years, which includes forecast of regional development from the sight of preferential technologies, development of infrastructure and development of innovation infrastructure e.g. technology and innovation centres, technology or scientific-technology industrial parks, advisory infrastructure, development of financing systems of innovation entrepreneurship, creation of support programmes, creation of innovation companies, development of incubators, spin-in and spin-off processes, system of support for domestic and foreign technology based companies, allocation of foreign technology and innovation based companies, acquisition of investors, cross-border cooperation support in the field of research and development and implementation of progressive technologies as a exploitation of relevant European support networks. End users of the RIS project results are mostly technology-oriented innovative companies active in the region, RTD organisations and other organisations which have the possibility to exploit the developing innovation infrastructure of the region.

The scheme of the RIS project as developed by the European Commission defines three main phases of the projects:

a) Definition Phase - establishment of the organizational structure of the project together with appointment of the project steering committee, definition of regional consensus of the innovation strategy in the region and determination of main objectives
b) Analytic Phase - includes potential of the region, needs of technology-based companies, potential of RTD base in the region, state and development of innovation infrastructure and support system of the innovation entrepreneurship
c) Definition of regional priorities as the results of the project phases a) and b), start of implementation phase of the prior activities and creation of monitoring system of these activities.

In the FP5 the pilot RIS project was launched (http://bic.sk/projects.php?tid=98) in the regions of Nitra, Nove Zamky and Bratislava. The project was a result of merging of two RIS projects (RIS WS - for the region of Bratislava and RIS SK - for the region of Nitra and Nove Zamky)

Currently there are six running FP6 projects on development of the regional innovation strategies in the Slovak Republic: Region of Banska Bystrica, region of Presov, region of Trencin, region of Trnava, region of Zilina