Making the JRC more accessible to European industry
At the joint initiative of Commissioners Cresson and Bangemann, the European Commission decided in December last year to carry out a feasibility study on the creation of a European "Technology Park" on the site of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy. The aim of the study was to investigate ways of making the unique facilities and high-level know-how of the JRC more accessible to European industry and other research centres. The JRC is the Commission's own research centre, employing more than 1000 researchers in seven institutes on five different sites (Ispra (IT), Geel (BE), Karlsruhe (DE), Petten (NL), Seville (ES)). Its research activity can be schematically presented in the following application clusters: - Consumer protection and quality of life; - Energy; - Environment and climate; - Safety in transport, construction and industry; - Information and communication. These application clusters build on generic technologies which can be organized in four groups: - Measurements and testing; - Software, data-analysis, multi-media and optics; - Materials technologies; - Nuclear sciences. The development at the JRC of a coherent set of activities fostering technology transfer, increasing collaborative research and stimulating networking across Europe is not only a feasible option, but seems an indispensable and desirable complement to its institutional activities. Taking into account the elements obtained during the study and the need to preserve the institutional role of the JRC, with its inherent neutrality and subsidiarity, the creation of a technology park based on the traditional model, existing in a large variety in the Member States, is not considered as appropriate. Instead, an integrated set of flexible access mechanisms is being analysed, targeted to companies big and small, research centres and individuals across Europe. The study will look at a wide range of possibilities, such as: - Making flexible collaborative structures available for external partners (contractual work, mixed team projects, shared use of large-scale facilities); - Hosting demonstration projects for SMEs which have no infrastructure of their own; - Taking training and education initiatives based on the specialized installations and expertise, including industry secondment schemes; - Using innovative telecommunications solutions to foster technology transfer and collaborative research. The results of the feasibility study, which will involve a range of Commission services, as well as external experts, are expected later this year.