German EUREKA Chairmanship 2009 | 2010

EUREKA  --  World-Class Innovation Through International Cooperation

 

EUREKA occupies an important place on the map of European Research and Innovation Policy. Today, science, research and innovative companies naturally act across borders. These processes have continuously gained momentum since the foundation of EUREKA, resulting in the increasing importance of a research policy that is coordinated internationally between countries and at European level.

In view of the current economic dynamic, EUREKA can be a trigger and driver for new innovations. Europe needs a new innovation boost, as new and sustainable growth in advanced industrialised economies will mainly originate from new ideas and intelligent products. Innovations are not only the basis for future competitiveness of our national economies; they are also pivotal in finding solutions to the grand societal questions of our time, such as climate change, energy supply, demographic change or security.

EUREKA has until now proven to be an important element of the European Research and Innovation Area (ERA) and has created framework conditions that effectively promote international co-operation in research and development. EUREKA facilitates the common access to innovation resources like know-how and funding for participating project partners. But first and foremost, EUREKA has been and still is close to "the market", where innovations can be turned into customized products, services and processes. EUREKA, therefore, has been able to maintain its role alongside the Research Framework Programmes of the EU as an excellent platform for innovators to flexibly respond to the changing requirements of industrial research and development.

The aim of the German EUREKA Chairmanship 2009/2010 was to advance the strategic scope of action for EUREKA. Taking up the achievements of previous Presidencies, particularly those of Slovenia in 2007/08 and Portugal in 2008/09, Germany was and still is committed to strengthen EUREKA as an active partner in shaping the European Research and Innovation Area, with an emphasis to promote the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises in the implementation of international cooperation projects. A big step in this direction has already been done through the programme Eurostars, jointly funded by EUREKA member states and the European Commission. Moreover, a key task will be to seek and intensify the co-operation with partners outside Europe already begun with the association of South Korea to EUREKA in June 2009.

The Launch Conference of the German Presidency held on 6-7 July in Dresden served as a forum to discuss the aims and main objectives of the German Chairmanship with leading representatives from government and administration, industry and science. The German Chairmanship presented its conclusions of the event and work towards the implementation of the identified priorities in concrete initiatives during the presidency. At the ministerial conference in Berlin in June 2010 we presented the results and built a robust basis for a continuing development of EUREKA in the European Research Area.