Better policies for better value chains
From design and marketing to production and distribution, value chains in industry and manufacturing have delivered a myriad of products. Nonetheless, more effort is needed to improve policymaking in this direction and to ensure the best possible results for the money invested on a national and/or regional scale. In this context, the EU-funded 'Global value chains as an emerging challenge for national and European RTD policies' (Gloval) project looked at improving GVCs by studying good practices and case studies to create tools to help project managers make better investment decisions. It successfully revealed the conflict among GVCs vis-à-vis research, technology and development (RTD) policies. Through workshops and discussions with RTD policymakers across the EU, the project team validated its findings and reached out to all concerned stakeholders through various activities. Working on a wide variety of GVC cases in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), Gloval developed a valuable report showing the incongruence between policy and the business world. It then created an innovation guidance framework to improve GVC practices, as well as specific tools to enhance policy-making in relation to GVCs. Once the newly developed tools are tested in real environments, it can be further refined, giving the EU novel ways to enhance policymaking in RTD based on better GVC processes.
