A boost for the Baltics
Regional cooperation among the Baltic States and improved services through national contact points (NCPs) for EU-funded projects has helped further competitiveness for EU Associated Candidate Countries (ACCs). The EU-funded project Boosting Baltic FP6 has achieved this for Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. The project undertook training and networking initiatives to improve these countries' NCPs and upgrade technology transfer. More specifically, Boosting Baltic FP6 oversaw the exchange of best practices for NCPs and helped them optimise their tasks. It conducted training workshops to assist the NCPs in raising the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in EU projects under the Sixth and Seventh Framework Programmes (FP6, FP7), promoting new partnerships and raising the competitiveness of industry across the Baltics. This included information seminars and workshops to encourage joint projects and improved linkages through ScanBalt, the region's information exchange network for health and life sciences. It also involved competence mapping across the region and an electronic guide to assist in EU project proposal submission, as well as partner search guides and relevant publications. In addition to forming close ties with ScanBalt, the project also linked with the Steinbeis global network for technology transfer and the former Swedish EU Research and Development Council, Vinnova. This facilitated the establishment of joint projects in the Baltic region and enabled the NCPs to draw on a vast pool of resources. Among the project's most notable achievements were the electronic guide to FP7 and the ScanBalt partner search guide, truly boosting entrepreneurship, life science research and innovation in the Baltics.