Towards an Ecosystem of Innovation for Inner Areas: A Research Plan on the Ogliastra Region (Sardinia, Italy)

The global project e.INS ecosystem - Ecosystem of Innovation for Next generation Sardinia is intended to support Sardinian small and medium enterprises (SMEs)’ innovation and sustainability: in particular, our research group focused on SMEs operating in the tourism and cultural heritage sector, highlighting those operating in marginal places. To achieve this, proposing a network between different municipalities is strongly recommended to create a single destination equipped with compelling storytelling. Following the slow tourism basis as a catalyst for inner areas’ development, the present work illustrates a still-in-the making project on the case study of the Ogliastra, i.e., a historical-geographical region located in central-eastern Sardinia: the aim is to first propose a strategy of destination storytelling through a coastal-inner areas relationship, and then engage the entrepreneurial tourism reality in such a spatial aggregation. Starting from Tortolì port, we proposed a concept of itinerary for slow exploration of all the municipalities in the Ogliastra’s Rio Pardu Valley system, rich in natural landscape, heritage and Genius Loci. Creating a coastal area inner area type destination could lead to benefits for the entrepreneurial landscape of the Ogliastra Valley, also strengthening the SMEs of the coastal area.