The Eastern Cape Regional Innovation Networking platform was established in 2020 to create and promote a competitive and inclusive multi-stakeholder innovation platform in the Eastern Cape Province. It aims to drive innovation and strengthen regional/rural innovation systems, by bringing together various players in Industry, Government, Academia, and other players in the Research, Development and innovation (RDI) community.

The main objectives of the project are:

• Establishment of a competitive and inclusive multi-stakeholder innovation platform in the Eastern Cape Province to allow innovators and industry to work together.
• Improve access to seed funding by leveraging partnerships with both public and private sector organisations.
• Create a coordination mechanism for the various programmes related to technology development in the province.
• Leverage the research and development capability of the local universities and other institutions to develop the provincial economy.
• Promote, support and mentor technology focused SMMEs through implementation of innovation-driven activities.
• Initiate and implement prospective innovation driven projects, programmes and initiatives directed at spurring their regional economies, industrialisation, regional capacity development and creation of job opportunities.

The focus is on technology development at the grassroots level to encourage, promote and support inclusive economic growth. Hence, the EC-RINP follows a proactive approach to sourcing innovations with a special focus on prioritising innovations that may come from areas that would traditionally lack access to the current support systems for innovation.