"From research to innovative businesses:public-private partnerships to increase Europe’s competitiveness" is the title of a one-day workshop hosted by the Industrial Technologies Directorate of the European Commission’s RESEARCH Directorate General to be held in Brussels, 7 November 2003.

The agenda 2010 for a more competitive Europe targets Europe’s annual RTD expenses at 3% of GDP (Barcelona European Council, 2002). Improved public-private partnerships are therefore urgently needed, in particular to foster commercial exploitation of inventions born within research and development projects which have been supported by public funds.

This one-day workshop will gather stakeholders from regions, national institutions, governments, industry and the investor community. The results of the EC-supported EUROMAPLIVE project will be presented. This project is based on a wide consultation and interviews with more than 130 European players in the area. It proposes a new integrated approach to couple public and private funds, primarily aiming at increasing the capability of start-ups and SMEs to reach market applications using public-funded RTD work.

During the workshop, the EUROMAPLIVE results and related recommendations will be confronted with the points of view of European experts, the EC and the full spectrum of European stakeholders joining the event in a public debate. Lines of actions will be sketched to implement new measures which appear to catalyze the transformation of research and technological outputs into business innovations, thus paving the way towards a substantial improvement of Europe’s competitiveness.

Questions to be answered during the workshop:

Please download the detailed workshop programme, speaker names and registration form at:
http://www.icon-innovation.de/english/index.html

Participation to the workshop is free of charge but registration is required.

Who should attend this workshop?

• Private investors (banks, seed fund managers, venture fund managers, corporate innovation managers)
• Public research managers (Universities, Technical Research Centres)
• SMEs associations and SMES managers
• Incubator managers
• Regional intermediaries specialised in technology transfer
• National and regional authorities involved in economic development based on technology-based innovation
• Regional and national innovation policy makers
• Anyone interested in public-private partnerships to increase Europe’s competitiveness