Finally, your Startup Village programme is an initiative that is very close to my heart. I have supported this idea from the beginning and I hope you can work closely with the new Innovation Ecosystems Workprogramme of Horizon Europe to ensure that we have a high impact on the development of rural areas via innovation.
I know that my colleague, the VP Suica, will talk this afternoon about Startup Villages because it is very important it becomes one of the flagships of the new long term strategy for rural areas.
Your bottom-up initiative is certainly commendable and it fits perfectly with my efforts to build a European Innovation Area. An European space that emanates directly from my hearing at the European Parliament. It will complement the European Education Area and the European Research Area with an European Area for Innovators to cover the three corners of the Knowledge triangle.
An European Innovation Area that will provide consistency and clear directions to increase the effectiveness of the many existing innovation programmes. It will have a strong focus on regions to ensure that nobody is left behind in the Innovation Economy, including second tier cities and rural areas. This is why this morning I have presented a first ever joint action plan between the Committee of the Regions and the areas under my portfolio. Innovation in regions is at the top of this Action Plan.
This European Innovation Area will ensure that technologically driven and non-technologically driven innovations receive adequate support increasing the number of women led startups opening paths from education directly to innovation, in addition to keeping the current paths of moving from research to innovation.