Active-ID
Strengthening innovation in the Sports & Leisure ecosystem
Sports & leisure (S&L) is a broad industry encompassing such sectors as sports, tourism, and recreation. It has a promise of creating a wide societal and economic impact by improving citizens’ well-being and EU regions’ vitality. To be able to do so in full force, the field’s industry needs to adapt to the structural and behavioral changes brought about by Covid-19 and climate change.
This requires embracing strong orientation for cross-sectoral innovation, supported by data-driven approach and sustainability principles, as well as creating enabling environments for companies to adopt the innovation mindset.
What is Active ID?
The project aims at providing holistic support to companies by strengthening regional innovation ecosystems, enhancing the measures for boosting innovation capacities, and facilitating digital & green upskilling to ensure their competitiveness and adaptability.
Building on the joint interregional learning process, project partners will improve five regional policy instruments that have potential to promote cross-sectoral multi-stakeholder innovation and upgrade support mechanisms.
While developing S&L sectors is often considered as one of the core priorities in regional development, regional policy frameworks often lack a coherent vision of how the interlinkage of these sectors can be turned into a driving force of regional economies.
To address this, project offers an integrated approach to facilitating the growth of regional S&L industries, allowing the regions to build on the priorities set in their regional smart specialisation strategies.
This process will be supported via intensive thematic learning, study visits, deep-dive sessions, masterclasses, and peer-reviewing.
You can find more information on the website https://www.interregeurope.eu/active-id
Our input
In 2024, the province of North Brabant launched the Levendig Brabant program. A component of this program focuses on strengthening innovation and business opportunities for sports and leisure SMEs. While the program provides the frameworks and goals, concrete actions need to be defined in collaboration with the sector.
To achieve this, the province of North Brabant and the Cluster Sports & Technology are organizing meetings with various stakeholders, including HiswaRecon, VisitBrabant, InnoBeweeglab, and SSNB.
With the establishment of the Van Gogh National Park, several programs and projects, such as Brabant Beleeft and MONA, have been launched. Several overlapping themes have emerged, and we want to explore how our project can contribute to innovation for SMEs within the focus areas, as well as how it can be part of a larger set of actions for healthy, active, social, and economic impact.
Our partners
The ACTIVE ID consortium includes five EU regions and seven partners with varying levels of regional development and the state of the sports and leisure industry:
- Päijät-Häme (Finland) LAB University of Applied Sciences, Regional Council of Päijät-Häme
- Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) University of Castilla La Mancha
- Dalarna (Sweden) Region Dalarna
- North Brabant (Netherlands) Cluster Sports and Technology, Province of North Brabant
- Vratsa (Bulgaria) Chamber of Commerce and Industry Vratsa