The RECORD Thematic Network project

The main objective of the RECORD project was to assist in learning the practice of benchmarking RTD organisations. Concrete output of the project will be a manual of benchmarking centres of innovation and an indicative map of such centres in Central and Eastern Europe. The aim of these is to be equally useful for RTD managers, funding agents and policy makers.

"RECORD" is an acronym for "Recognising Central and Eastern European Centres of RTD: Perspectives for the European Research Area" and is based on the European Commissions DG Research STRATA Policy Initiative.
The website of the RECORD Thematic Network project is http://www.record-network.net. ,The RECORD network has 10 members from 9 countries. Science and Technology policy makers of the EU and the Accession States are expected to profit from RECORD in a number of ways:,- Innovation benchmarking will be given wide publicity so Central and Eastern European countries can better explore their own S&T capacities,,- by throwing spotlight on Central and Eastern European RTD specialisation, the ERA can get easier access to forgotten or yet undiscovered stocks of knowledge,,- RECORDs co-operative network frame promotes a common understanding of innovation policies supporting convergence and more efficient policy tools.
The main objective of RECORD was to assist in learning the practice of benchmarking RTD (research and technological development) organisations. First, some Central and Eastern European research organisations were selected that are innovative and are therefore expected to successfully integrate in the ERA (European Research Area). A relatively simple quantitative method was worked out to describe the innovative performance of these institutions, the so-called RECORD Centres of Excellence. A few of these were successively surveyed qualitatively in search for good practice.
Concrete output of the project will be a manual of benchmarking centres of innovation (i.e. how to benchmark innovation producers at micro-level), and an indicative map of such centres in Central and Eastern Europe. The aim of these is to be equally useful for RTD managers, funding agents and policy makers. At the end of the project, policy options and recommendations will also be drawn.
The final conference of the project will be held in Vienna on 22 January 2004.,

Countries

Austria, Czechia, Hungary, Ireland, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, United Kingdom