European Commission launches PRO INNO Europe initiative - calls for proposals
The European Commission has launched the PRO INNO Europe initiative, designed to foster trans-European cooperation between national and sub-national innovation programmes and actions, through five calls for proposals under the Research and Innovation section of the Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Development (FP6). PRO INNO stands for 'promoting innovation in Europe' and is particularly addressing publicly funded innovation policy initiatives and public-private partnerships in support of innovation. This new initiative builds upon the results and experience of the current PAXIS and Gate2Growth initiatives. Its objective is to facilitate trans-European cooperation among national and/or sub-national innovation programmes and to provide incentives for jointactions. CORDIS, the EU's official information service on research and innovation, has launched a new Innovation Partners Search facility specifically developed to facilitate partner searches for the PRO INNO initiative. The total indicative budget for these calls is 29.25 million euro. The call for proposals will be open until 5 January 2006. An information day was held in Brussels on 24 October 2005. The draft agenda and slide presentations from the event are available at the following web address: http://cordis.europa.eu/innovation/en/infoday.htm(opens in new window) Full details of the call FP6-2005-INNOV-9, published in five strands, is available at the following web addresses: Fostering Co-ordination of national and sub-national innovation programmes - the PRO INNO Europe initiative: Strand 1: co-ordination actions aiming at the establishment of innovation specific ERA-Nets ("INNO-Nets") and specific support actions aiming at preparing for future INNO-Nets; http://fp6.cordis.lu/fp6/call_details.cfm?CALL_ID=237(opens in new window) Strand 2: targeted cross-border initiatives in support of innovation that address specific problems without necessarily being fully integrated into national or sub-national innovation programmes ("INNO-Actions"); http://fp6.cordis.lu/fp6/call_details.cfm?CALL_ID=238(opens in new window) Strand 3: aims at facilitating the identification and further analysis of good practice solutions for assistance to innovative enterprises. May be followed-up at a later stage through co-ordinated or joint actions ("PRO INNO Learning Platform"); http://fp6.cordis.lu/fp6/call_details.cfm?CALL_ID=239(opens in new window) Strand 4: Identification, analysis and monitoring of business clusters in Europe; http://fp6.cordis.lu/fp6/call_details.cfm?CALL_ID=240(opens in new window) Strand 5: Global Review of Innovation Intelligence and Policy Studies (GRIPS). http://fp6.cordis.lu/fp6/call_details.cfm?CALL_ID=241(opens in new window) To access the Innovation Partners search tool, on the CORDIS European Innovation Portal, please go to: http://cordis.europa.eu/innovation/en/partners.htm(opens in new window) Further information and supporting documentation can be downloaded from the CORDIS website at: http://cordis.europa.eu/fp6/innovation.htm(opens in new window)