EU–Russia Cooperation on Innovation: INNO-Views publishes the summary outcomes of two policy workshops and the first EU-Russia Innovation Forum

The document synthesises the outcomes of two preparatory workshops, first one held in Antwerp 27-28th April 2010 and the second one held in Saint-Petersburg 10-12th May 2010 and reflects on the concluding discussions held in the First EU-Russia Innovation Forum in Lappeenranta 25-27th May 2010. The workshops were co-organised by the INNO-Views project, which also contributed to the First EU-Russia Innovation Forum via providing expert input to its content.

This summary provides useful information to those stakeholders who want to engage in EU-Russia cooperation activities on innovation, such as the European Commission, relevant EU Member States’ national and regional authorities, the Russian Federal Government, relevant Russian regional and local authorities, European and Russian researchers, business people and other dedicated innovation support organisations.

The Antwerp workshop brought together over 30 leading EU and Russian experts from the public, private and academic sectors with policy makers to discuss the rationales, challenges and opportunities to develop cooperation in innovation between the EU and Russia. These recommendations were further discussed and elaborated in a follow-up workshop held in Saint-Petersburg. That workshop was organised jointly by the City of Lappeenranta, Saint-Petersburg City Government, European-Russian InnoPartnership (ERIP) with support by INNO-Views project.

The process to identify policy recommendation for EU-Russia cooperation on innovation finally culminated to the First EU-Russia Innovation Forum, in which more than 800 experts, officials, business people and other innovation stakeholders from Russia and Europe gathered together in Lappeenranta, South-East Finland. Nine key initiatives were identified as the main conclusions of the Lappeenranta Forum.
Key initiatives with regard to the EU-Russia Modernisation Partnership:

• Modernising Russian companies in partnership with EU company knowhow; e.g. in pharmaceutical industry
• Visa-freedom; starting with business and university people from Russia and EU
• Setting up pilot projects in the field of energy efficiency
• Rule of law; promotion of compliance agreement procedures
• Engaging Russia in the EU Digital Agenda

And in relation to innovation cooperation were:

• Making innovation policy cooperation a top priority in the current and future EU-Russia partnership
• Creating a common research and innovation environment to support innovation-based modernisation of the two economies
• Enhancing existing innovation support mechanisms and improving access to business-related innovation information
• Developing a dedicated programme for joint innovative actions funded and managed by the EU and Russia.

Moreover, a number of cross-cutting activities were raised, namely:

• Launching EU-Russia business events; Partneriats
• Establishing a business contact programme
• EU-Russia training programme
• Development of EU-Russia education system.

These suggestions were handed over to the two Prime Ministers in the Forum, as an input to the formal EU-Russian negotiations on mutual collaboration at Rostov-on-Don the following week.

The full Antwerp workshop presentations and background papers, as well as other material, can be downloaded from the Pro INNO Europe portal at http://www.proinno-europe.eu/events/eu-russia-cooperation-innovation

The First EU-Russia Innovation Forum outcomes and presentations are available at www.eurussiainnoforum.org

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Summary output EU-Russia Cooperation on Innovation