Causes How Research and Technology Organisations Strengthen the Research and Innovation Base in Europe

Today in the European Parliament, Maria da Graça Carvalho hosted the event "How Research and Technology Organizations strengthen the Research and Innovation Base in Europe", which was organized by the consortium AERTOs - Associated European Research and Technology Organisations.

AERTOs is an ERA-NET project of the 7th FP, in which seven major European research and technology organisations and their national ministries have joined together (Fraunhofer, TNO, CEA, VTT, SINTEF, Tecnalia and SP).

The aim of the project is to achieve a greater cooperation among the European Research and technology organisations (RTOs) and ultimately this cooperation should foster Europe's technological and economic competitiveness.

The objective of this event was to introduce some of these cooperations and discuss the preconditions needed to maximize the impact of RTOs at European level.

After a welcome speech from Ms Carvalho about the Future of the European Research and Innovation Programmes; the Chairman of the Board, TNO, Jan Mengelers, presented "Shaping of Innovation in Europe through RTO's".

Also, there were presented three successful cooperations between Research and Technology organizations: European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) by Claude Ayache - Director European Affairs, CEA; Heterogenous Technology Alliance HTA by Hubert Lakner - Director Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems, Fraunhofer IPMS; and finally ÆRTOs - first ERA-NET for Associated European Research and Technology Organisations by Jens Neugebauer - Director European Policy and Business Development, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft.

The Secretary General of EARTO, Chris Hull, made an intervention on How Research and Technology Organisations can help deliver the Innovation Union Objectives. To conclude there was a final discussion with the exchange of views of the participants.

 All the presentations here