Sustainability

The Fibre Optic Valley project was still underway at the time of the case study. The legal structure is as described in the previous section, going through a reinforcement phase, broadening the competence of the members of the board, focusing on the three fields and further developing the innovative culture. The creation of the private company linked to the existing non-profit association is a sign of the commitment to the future of the project partners.

Transferability

The transferable implementation practices and innovative results presented below are the lessons learned from this project, on a generalised level. The features that made the Fibre Optic Valley approach a success and which are useful pointers for other regions launching similar projects, include:

• finding an area of competence in which you have regional know-how in combination with a capacity to further develop and become more innovative within the field;
  

• finding partners within academia, the local authorities and trade and business representatives (triple helix), and finding common and dynamic means for driving this development;
  

• finding support among groups outside of the inner core of the project in order to succeed with the ambition and spread information on accomplishments on a broad basis;
  

• set up measurable goals and milestones, both quantified and ‘softer’ goals.

What makes Fibre Optic Valley innovative may not be the way the organisation was set up, or the way innovations are developed. What makes Fibre Optic Valley innovative is the way in which the municipality, the university and the regional trade and industry came together and managed to adapt to a negative trend through turning ‘discarded' resources from into levers of development for a new innovative environment.