23 leading Innovation Agencies, all members of TAFTIE (the European Network of Innovation Agencies), gathered in Madrid on 11 February for the first meeting of its Executive Working Group.
Among them no less than 4 out of the 7 organisations that make up the TACTICS consortium took part in it. Through that, TACTICS manifests its capability to exploit synergies with the major dedicated European networks of innovation agencies to better address innovation support needs through clusters and international cluster cooperation for the benefit of SMEs
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.
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