The “ISCI” project and the internationalisation patterns of SMEs in the local agrofood industry: the case of Apulia region

Abstract

The I.S.C.I. project “Innovative Services to Strengthen Cooperation and Internationalisation between SMEs in the field of agro-food industry (Greece-Italy)” targets the Axis 1 of the European territorial cooperation INTERREG program Greece-Italy 2007-2013: “Strengthening competitiveness and innovation”. The project was born with the aim of strengthen the presence of the local agro-food SMEs (in Apulia Region, Italy, and in Corfu, Greece) on the foreign markets, enhancing innovation processes and coordinated cooperation in order to foster the internationalisation processes of the agro food industry. The ISCI project objective and purpose is the definition of a model aiming at the constitution of technological incubators that will network to deliver innovative services for the internationalisation of the agro-food SMEs system. In progress within the ISCI project, the paper aims to determine different patterns of internationalisation that characterise the local field of agro-food industry, in particular those that seem to be predominant within the most strategic sectors of the local agro-food industry.