Europe INNOVA has new home on CORDIS European Innovation Portal
The European Innovation Portal on CORDIS - the EU's official information service on research, development and innovation - has launched a new section focusing on the INNOVA initiative. This takes a sector-based approach to analysing and addressing the innovation challenges in ten specific industrial areas. Europe INNOVA, which is supported under the Sixth Framework Programme, is a European Commission initiative for innovation professionals. It aims to mobilise and inform key stakeholders in entrepreneurial innovation and to facilitate the emergence of innovation networks. The target audience includes company managers, policy makers, cluster managers, investors, relevant associations and other European citizens involved in innovation activities. The INNOVA section on CORDIS reflects the initiative's sector-specific approach, which is intended to develop tailor-made policy measures for each sector and to enhance cooperation between business clusters in Europe. Based on the experiences of the Gate2Growth initiative, Europe INNOVA unites over 230 contractors from 23 Member States. The initiative, which focuses on the whole innovation value chain from knowledge creation to commercialisation, currently consists of ten innovation finance networks aiming to improve access to finance for innovation, and 11 cluster networks, intending to provide better innovation management tools. Eight innovation panels composed of industry experts on innovation are in charge of making sector-specific policy recommendations. The Europe INNOVA section of the Innovation Portal gives a schematic overview of the whole initiative, along with explanations of the various elements. Each of the innovation finance networks and 11 cluster networks is profiled. Other actions within the initiative include: sectoral innovation watch activities, analysing innovation in each of the above sectors; the Innovation Management project, aimed at assisting innovative start-ups of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs); coordinated actions to define standards as innovation catalysts; innovation mapping of existing and emerging clusters throughout Europe; the horizontal Europe INNOVA Communications Service; and a web-based Europe INNOVA forum. The main differences between Europe INNOVA and other programmes are its sector-specific and analytical approach and the focus on clusters. The initiative is currently supported under the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), and is initially scheduled to last 30 months. However, it is expected that funding will subsequently continue under the new Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP). The Europe INNOVA initiative is hosted on the CORDIS European Innovation Portal, the gateway to information on policy, services, studies, reports, initiatives and programmes related to innovation in Europe.