Top European certification of the quality of services, the opening of a new contact point for social entrepreneurship and the establishment of the Art Center in Terezín - ICUK, or Innovation Center of the Ústí Region, scored points in June. Martin Mata, its director, does not hide his satisfaction from a job well done, but adds in one breath: Domestic competition is fine, but we as a region need to go more to Europe, to the European level, that is the agenda I want to focus on now.

Martin Mata, a young man in his forties, doesn't just talk to the wind, he has a vision and, above all, the "drive" to get things done. The innovation center is in its fourth year and has grown from a small organization of 15 people based in two offices on the university campus to a respected city center institution and a professional team with three times the number of employees.

Martin, you have just returned from Brno, where you or ICUK awarded a prestigious certification at the EBN International Congress. What was it about?

In May, we at ICUK underwent a fairly extensive audit by the EBN organization, which examined and evaluated our services, processes and organization for certification by the prestigious European network of business and innovation centers EU|BIC. We succeeded, the audit confirmed the highest standards of services for entrepreneurs and thanks to this we obtained membership in the network for five years and the right to use the EU|BIC brand.

What does that mean for you?

For me personally, it is an international recognition of our work so far. What is even better is that through ICUK, companies from the region will gain access to exclusive industry training, financial tools, new partnerships with customers and business partners in global markets. The international experience, cooperation and perspective is absolutely key, and that is currently my current ambition.

What do you mean? Can you elaborate?

I don't mean this only in relation to companies, but also in relation to our region in general. I feel that as a region we have slightly weak lobbying at the European level and perhaps a little too low ambition. I would like to change this in a few gradual steps and initiate more international activities with the regional leadership. I don't want to reveal more now, but at the level of my team, for example, I want each of my key colleagues to complete an internship in Brussels or elsewhere in their field agenda and work hard on themselves. Cooperation with the World Bank is also emerging. In short, we intend to go all over the world for experience, so that thanks to this we can also advance the region to the world level.

Another hot news for ICUK was the opening of the so-called SPoint, what is it and who will it serve?

SPoint is a point of contact for advice in the field of social entrepreneurship. We opened it in cooperation with the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and under the auspices of the First Deputy Governor of the Ústí Region Jiří Kulhánek. It is located right next to us at the innovation center and will serve entrepreneurs from our region. It will provide free advice, education, information on financial resources and promotion of social entrepreneurship. And it is exactly the service that belongs to our region. Social entrepreneurship has societal implications, it helps to include the disadvantaged, there is a public benefit.

I also note that you have been involved in initiatives around the cultural and creative industries… shouldn't your domain be more in technology and innovation?

Of course, that's still the case, we don't shy away from it. We launched the project and services of the Digital Innovation Hub for the digitization of companies, we are still announcing the Innovation Company of the Ústí Region competition, which, by the way, already started this year and, in addition to the companies, we are also announcing the personality who has been most committed to the development of the region. In the Transformation Center project, we are preparing, among other things, so-called fab labs, a kind of technological workshop. However, the creative and cultural industries are an extremely growing industry worldwide. This includes, for example, game development, the film industry, in which the region has begun to invest more thanks to the Film Office, but it is also industrial design and marketing, i.e. areas that quite fundamentally influence the competitiveness of products, companies, and places. We have an ever better faculty of art and design here, we are in the city where the Schichts did business, and they were marketing pioneers, we know their brands to this day. That's why it makes sense to us.

What do you do in this area?

Our strategic manager Lucka Podrápská put together a platform of active young people and organizations from the whole region, who created the website Kreativní.uk, are preparing a regional database of creative people. We also consult for companies on the currently launched creative vouchers of the Ministry of Culture and we support the newly emerging Art Center in Terezín, which will be a kind of creative workshop for young creators, and one of our efforts to find new content for Terezín.

ICUK is sometimes said to have become among the top five, maybe even three best innovation centers in the Czech Republic in a relatively short time thanks to you. How does that sound to you?

This is of course pleasing, since the beginning we compared ourselves to the best, we looked up to them. But I don't see it as a race, our backyard is too small for that. We will probably never completely catch up with the JIC (South Moravian Innovation Center) anyway. Currently, it makes more sense for me to cooperate, to use our synergy on the way out, to Europe, to the world. Last year or the year before, we joined together with other centers in the Ynovate network, and it is precisely in this – in our strength of know-how and global ambitions that I now see the path.

Thanks for the interview and good luck.