The Vanguard Initiative originated Interreg Europe project “Enhancing policies through interregional cooperation: New industrial value chains for growth (S34GROWTH)” , involving 10 VI regions, was launched in 2016 with a bold ambition to explore and define how industry-led, inter-regional collaboration can accelerate EU ambitions to improve industrial innovation and competitiveness. Specifically, the project:  aims to improve the effectiveness of EU interregional cooperation through the development / improvement of existing regional policy instruments  supports the renewal of Europe's industry and competitiveness through industrial innovation across EU borders  is seeking out new approaches to co-specialisation in smart specialisation which can be replicated across the EU and across EU industrial domains  https://www.interregeurope.eu/s34growth/ With the project half-way through its delivery, S34Growth will hold an expert roundtable debate on the state of play at the Committee of the Regions on 15 March.  The timing of this event provides a critical reflection point in emerging project learning and an opportunity to review early, growth-related policy considerations in light of current EU discussions regarding the post-2020 MFF. The debate on March 15 aims to: provide an update on insights from the project, following its first major phase of activity in relation to the  inter-regional dimension of S3,  how this relates to EU growth and competitiveness ambitions and how new models and approaches to EU industry collaboration can deliver growth and competitiveness share findings with a strong EU and domestic policy relevance for the current programming period and the post-2020 timeframe test out direction of demand (with attendees)  for the EU's  innovation and economic growth agenda, in the context of: the EU's Industrial Policy Strategy, the future growth-orientation of the EU's post-2020 Regional Policy especially in relation to ESIF, S3 and projects such as Interreg Europe which support industry-led, inter-regional collaboration" The draft agenda can be found here: https://www.interregeurope.eu/s34growth/events/event/1543/new-industrial-value-chains-for-growth-s34growth/. Here’s the link to registration: http://www.tampere-region.eu/in-english/registration-s34growth-debate-15/ (Please note that due to limited capacity of the conference room, we try to take a balanced approach and reserve the right not to accept registration above that capacity).