COINCO Strategy 2025 - Discussion Paper

 The regions and cities in the COINCO-corridor Oslo-Göteborg-Malmö-Copenhagen-Berlin have worked out a strategy proposal which is presented in this discussion paper.

Behind the strategy is a political will to utilize mutual strengths and together become a leading player in a globalized world, based on common cultural, social and environmental values.

The strategy comprises of a vision and more detailed aims and actions within three different areas: Corridor infrastructure, Innovation and Cooperation. In this way, the COINCO partners want to establish a political platform for transborder collaboration on matters essential to development - ‘hard' issues such as transport infrastructure and ‘soft' issues on improving cooperation within business, administration and knowledge production.

The synergy of COINCO will have to come from collaboration among businesses. Supporting cooperation between existing companies in the corridor, attracting innovative international companies, and supporting the creation of new knowledge intensive businesses is thus at the core of the strategy. New areas of collaboration will have to be identified systematically.

Cooperation among COINCO businesses have to be institutionally supported. Therefore a number of knowledge institutions have to be formed organized around the ‘triple helix'-principle - a tight collaboration between business, administration and knowledge producers, especially universities. Also new ways of collaboration have to be explored - ‘network governance'  has to be developed to supplement traditional regulation.

Every company, every university, every institution has to take the global reality into account and reacting to it. To make COINCO a privileged area of cooperation depends on easy access within the corridor for people and for goods. Some of the existing infrastructure is of a high quality, but seen from a network perspective there is a need for improvements. This strategy proposal points at a high speed rail link through the corridor, well connected to the main airports. This would improve passenger transport efficiency and quality within as well as in and out of the corridor. Similarly an improved network for freight transport could be obtained by improving the rail connections between the terminals where the sea, road and rail transport systems connect.

This paper presents a strategy proposal - the partners behind it are looking forward to have a broad response to it before working out a common Strategy Document.