A two-day conference (WIRE X) will be organised by the North-East Regional Development Agency (ADR Nord-Est) for the tenth edition of the Week of Innovative Regions in Europe (WIRE X) as part of the EU Romanian Presidency in Iași (North-East Region) from 26 to 28 June 2019. The event will gather actors active in the innovation, research and education ecosystem with the aim of creating a community of practice that will make use of their institutional learning and collective intelligence in order to solve societal challenges and to debate the future of research and innovation. The conference will formally discuss and will offer potential solutions regarding the positioning of R&I policies, regarding societal challenges, manifested through innovation, research and higher education. Representatives of European institutions, research organisations, clusters, education organisations, start-ups, SMEs, authorities and NGOs will exchange views on the role of R&I instruments in solving societal challenges and missions: - that reinvigorate the democratic policies and civic engagement (quadruple helix, S3, bottom-up processes, community led actions), - that address all forms of instruments (grants, prises, new forms of procurement, experimentation); - that cannot be addressed by national states (underlining the importance of the European approach); - that put the directionality in the centre of policy making so that multi-stakeholders from sciences, technologies and humanities could avoid the risk of alienation. A mix-method approach, that will facilitate the creation of a community of practice during the WIRE X will be used. The methods should increase the participant engagement, future cooperation and sharing of knowledge, delivering ways of a better understanding of R&I in the context of our immediate challenges (from climate change to migration, aging population and illiberalism).