The roots
For nearly 20 years, in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean – a region of more than 275,000 inhabitants located 500 km northeast of Montréal – concerted initiatives have been deployed to stimulate innovation among SMEs. Idéa innovation PME (2004-2010), then Innovation 02 (2011-2019) generated activities in turn to support innovation. It was when the Government of Québec created, in 2020, the Regional Spaces for Acceleration and Growth (ERAC) that the region seized the opportunity to consolidate its actions in terms of support for innovation based on a model offering promising prospects.
The key sectors of regional development are aluminium, forestry, agri-food and tourism. Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean can count on several organizations dedicated to developing sectoral expertise and business support.
- Four (4) niches of excellence (Aluminium Processing, AgroBoréal, Civil and Commercial Drones, Écoaventure boréale);
- Five (5) college centres for technology transfer and social practices (CCTT) (Agrinova, Centre de production automatisé, Centre de géomatique du Québec, ÉCOBES, Écofaune Boréal);
- One (1) regional university fertile in research and development projects (UQAC);
- The Digital CoLab, associated with Collège d’Alma.
Focus on innovation
In 2023, the ERAC SLSJ takes the name of Innovation 02 and targets its actions to facilitate any entrepreneur’s access to services in terms of growth and integration of innovation. To do this, a common game plan involving all actors of the regional innovation ecosystem is being worked on. The Innovation 02 and its partners are therefore mobilized to increase the culture of innovation, to improve services and referral of businesses to innovation. The targets are clear: increase the number of innovation projects in the region and increase the number of activities enabling networking between partners and the development of innovation skills.
Finally, the Regional Conference of Prefects now hosts ERAC. Aware of the many economic, technological, environmental and social challenges, the region’s elected municipal officials are making innovation a priority.
