Press Release

TAFTIE 2010, First EWG meeting in Madrid.

·  23 leading Innovation Agencies, all members of TAFTIE (the European Network of Innovation Agencies), gathered today in Madrid for the first meeting of its Executive Working Group.

·  The meeting kicked-off TAFTIE´s activities in 2010, coinciding with the Spanish Presidency of the EU where important developments are expected concerning Innovation in Europe.

·  CDTI – the Innovation Agency of the Spanish Government and a member of TAFTIE – assumes the rotating Chairmanship of TAFTIE for the second time from January to December 2010.

·  Major objectives for TAFTIE´s Chair in 2010 will be to complete the implementation of TAFTIE’s strategy, creating the right conditions to help shape future European Policies and consolidating linkages within the multilevel innovation world.

·  Dr. Charles Wessner, Director of Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, from the National Academy of Science, USA, delivered a presentation on “Comparative Innovation Policy: Best Practice for the 21st Century”.

Madrid February 11th.- Marking the launch of the annual Chairmanship of the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI, Spain), the members of the European Network of Innovation Agencies (TAFTIE) gathered in Madrid for its first Executive Working Group meeting in 2010. The meeting served to kick-off activities planned by sub-groups concerning a wide number of issues from SME´s policies at EU level, role of TAFTIE in the ERA, internationalisation of Innovation Agency´s operations, future of Innovation Agencies in 2020, etc.

The 2010 activity plan proposed by CDTI and endorsed by the TAFTIE Board in December last year, is in line with developments at the European level during the Spanish Presidency of the European Union in the first semester of the year and beyond. It is a time when European debates will be activated on topics like the Post-Lisbon Strategy, the European Research Area governance, a European Innovation Plan, the Eureka XXV Anniversary, etc.

TAFTIE members agreed that a period of change is at hand that suggests three challenges for the TAFTIE 2010 Chair: completing the implementation of TAFTIE’s strategy approved in 2007, creating the right conditions to help shape future European Policies and consolidating linkages within the multilevel innovation world and leading industrial R&D&I networks and initiatives at global, European and Regional levels. To that aim, thematic discussions are arranged at each of the successive meetings of the Executive Working Group in February, May and September.

At this first meeting, Dr. Charles Wessner, Director of Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship of the U.S. National Academy of Science addressed TAFTIE members. Mr. Wessner focussed his presentation on Comparative Innovation Policy, highlighting the Innovation Policy of the Obama Administration as well as good practices to support SMEs, like the Small Business Industrial Research Programme (SBIR).

This first meeting has been organised in conjunction with the IV CDTI Conference of International Technology Collaboration in which representatives of TAFTIE were also meeting partner Innovation Agencies namely, Chile, China and South Africa, allowing interesting networking.

The Board of TAFTIE will be meeting twice, first in June 2010 - preceded by a meeting of its Policy Forum aimed at delivering common positions – and later in December – connected to its Annual meeting. Also, 2010 will see a further development of a very important element of its Strategy: the TAFTIE Academy that will launch training activities of interest to its members.

Note for Editors:

TAFTIE and its Mission

TAFTIE is the European Association of leading national innovation agencies. Its Members make a major contribution to strengthening Europe’s economic performance and by supporting product-, process- and services innovation by implementing their countries’ national and –in most cases- International Research, Development and Innovation Programmes.

It gathers 23 Innovation agencies from 21 European countries with similar profiles whose aggregate annual budgets supporting innovation amount to 6.500 Million Euros. As specified in TAFTIE´s Strategy its mission is:

·  To share expertise and experience on design and/or implementation of public innovation policy to enhance the cumulative performance of the individual member organisations towards private enterprises and governments

·  To mutually support and exchange information in order to facilitate international networking and cooperation of enterprises and research institutes

·  To intensify cooperation with the European Commission in providing better support into innovation activities of our clients.

Elements of TAFTIE´s Strategy approved in 2007 are, among others, the Academy, a Policy Forum, Joint Actions, a Knowledge Base, etc.

For more information please visit: www.taftie.org

TAFTIE Members:

AdI / Portugal
CDTI / Spain
CTI-KTI / Switzerland
ENEA / Italy
Enterprise Estonia / Estonia
Enterprise Ireland / Ireland
FFG / Austria
IWT / Belgium
Matimop / Israel
National Agency for Innovation / Italy
NKTH / Hungary
NL Agency (former name SenterNovem) / The Netherlands
OSEO / France
PARP / Poland
PERA / United Kingdom
RANNIS / Iceland
Research Council of Norway / Norway
TEKES / Finland
TIA / Slovenia
TSB / United Kingdom
TTGV / Turkey
VDI VDE-IT / Germany
VINNOVA / Sweden

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