The “ISCI” project and the internationalization patterns of SMEs in the local Agro Food Industry: the case of Apulia region

The I.S.C.I. project “Innovative Services to Strengthen Cooperation and Internationalization 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 Corfù, Greece) on the foreign markets, enhancing innovation processes and coordinated cooperation in order to ease the internationalization 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 internationalization of the agro-food SMEs system. The paper, in progress within the ISCI project, aims to determine different patterns of internationalization that characterize 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.