The BSR Stars programme aims at strengthening competitiveness and economic growth in the Baltic Sea Region. This will be achieved by fostering transnational linkages between specialized research and innovation nodes, leading to strategic innovation alliances to tackle common “grand challenges”, such as health, energy, sustainable transports and digital business and services.

BSR Stars is a flagship within the European Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region and is a first-of-its-kind innovation programme.

The BSR Stars programme is a joint effort which has been developed over a period of one and a half years, involving approximately forty people from ten countries’ ministries and national innovation agencies.  The countries are: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland and Sweden. 

The development of the BSR Stars programme builds on the networks and experiences that have evolved within the BSR InnoNet project and knowledge generated by leading researchers on innovation; and the most recent EU innovation policies and instruments.

The main target groups of the programme are innovation environments, clusters and SME-networks. The first activities are carried out by the StarDust project with five pilots supported by new tools and methods on open and user driven innovation.