Aerospace Districts: Acceleration of the Strategic Transfer of Regional Advancements

AD-ASTRA (Aerospace Districts: Acceleration of the Strategic Transfer of Regional Advancements) is a project about the positive interconnection among innovation ecosystems, with a focus on aerospace sectors.The proposal aims at the development of a connected, competitive, interregional innovation ecosystem between 5 EU regions (Toulouse, South Holland, Madrid, Apulia, Emilia-Romagna) with: a shared interest in fostering aerospace sectors, enhancing the cross-contamination to and from other innovative sectors (e.g., automotive, biomedical, agri-food, big data); different innovation readiness levels; aerospace districts with different levels of maturity and consolidation. “Diversity generates wealth”: the collaboration of these markedly diverse regions, furthermore represented by partners from different spheres of the quadruple-helix, will be a growth opportunity.

The establishment of a solid and long-lasting collaborative EU network, able to exploit complementary skills, experiences, territorial and industrial vocations, will contribute to create a “critical mass” in EU strategic sectors such as innovation and aerospace, where global competition leads to a confrontation with actors of increasing size and requires innovative models and approaches.This ambitious goal will be achieved through an iterative process: starting from the collection, analysis and systematization of the experiences (competencies, technologies, networks) of the partner regions with reference to their aerospace districts; analyzing the future evolutions of the ecosystems, in response to technological, economic, political, and social megatrends; correcting or validating hypotheses and evolution models with the support of stakeholder groups; defining an action plan for the development of each of the regional aerospace ecosystems, valuing experiences and good practices stemming from other regions and strengthening spin-in and spin-out processes to and from other industrial sector and territories.