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EUREKA + your innovative ideas = your project!

Franco COZZANI, Chief of Strategy & Evaluation Department, EUREKA Secretariat

Mr. Cozzani, the EUREKA network is a network of excellence combining research and economy. What are your plans for the 25th year of EUREKA?

In 2010, we are going to keep working in line with our new initiatives which have been implemented since two years. We envision attracting even more projects for EUROSTARS, one of our main activities having an important added-value for SMEs generating innovation and research activity by themselves. We are also going to increase our attention to communication in 2010. We are looking into becoming more visible and making our activity known by parliamentarians, public authorities and, of course, private actors which are directly targeted by our actions. Consequently, more conferences, round-tables, seminars and other presentations will be held in order to promote knowledge about EUREKA, as well as about opportunities we offer. A reinforced and more deepened cooperation with European structures operating in the field of technology and manufacturing, including the FP7, is also previewed. A special attention will be paid to international cooperation in 2010. Enlarging the number of our non-EU partners, which have a great research potential and tremendous productivity capacity is one of EUREKA’s priority in 2010. For example, we already count Southern Korea among our associates, Norway, Switzerland Island, the Russian Federation and Israel as partners, and we would like to have more partnerships worldwide.

What is the nature of financial support that you help projects to get? Will there be any ‘EUREKA’ subsidies created?



The projects that we support usually receive a two-stage financial aid. The majority of funds come from national authorities responsible for research, innovation and economy; in most cases, this is the only source of funding. At the same time, and particularly for the EUROSTARS projects, the European Commission also takes part in the financing of selected projects. For 2007-2013 period which is the current programming period of most EU programmes, the Commission plans to co-finance EUROSTARS projects up to 100 million EUR. These amounts are part of the funds provided under the Seventh Framework Program for Research and Development (FP7). The Member States’ participation in this kind of projects within EUROSTARS is about 300 million EUR for the same period. As for EUREKA proper subsidies, they come from EU Member States and represent therefore national funding. What is EUREKA’s proper grant, if I may say, is the \"EUREKA Quality Label\" (since 1985) which is given to projects considered successful and having a great innovative added-value. This Label makes the public funding by national public authorities much easier. Today, more than 3,200 projects have been enabled to be created through this Label.



How do SMEs or research organisations have to proceed in order to get their project funded with the help of EUREKA?



First of all, I would like to say that EUREKA does not limit its activity to SMEs only. The latter are, of course, somehow privileged, but we also encourage the so-called clusters which are composed of large manufacturing companies active in research and technology and which try to bring high-tech products into our everyday life. These are multinational firms known worldwide as Nokia, Ericsson, Siemens etc, which together create mega-projects aiming to design an instrument, a device or a programme which will ease our life. There is one difference between EUREKA clusters and other clusters which we can very often hear about today. According to our vision, clusters are not territorial entities. This means that members of a cluster may be situated in different geographical area throughout Europe. Hence, our clusters represent partner networks, a kind of virtual “excellence area” with no relation to geographical situation. A very good example of EUREKA clusters’ success is the design of micro-chip which is today integrated in our credit cards, mobile phones etc. It would be very difficult today to make an electronic payment without this device.



What kinds of projects have most chances to obtain your assistance?



EUREKA does not have any preference regarding research areas and themes it deal with. Nor do we have a sort of jury who decides which project is good for funding and which one is not, according to the conjuncture, if I may say. It is therefore possible to any project related to any research and technological sphere, to ask for our assistance. This said, we can distinguish some thematic areas especially for our current clusters:



- Integrated Software

- Mobile Telecommunications

- Electronic Environment-friendly Packaging

- Energy Technologies

- Water Management Performing

- Advanced Manufacturing



The two latter themes are currently in process of implementing, but they definitely will start by the end of 2010 as they have already received EUREKA pre-label.



In order to get assisted by EUREKA, applicants should contact EUREKA national agencies, like OSEO-Anvar in France. These contact points will provide applicants not only with all technical details on how to submit your application, but also will assess chances of public funding for your project. We usually tell all applicants if ever their project has no or many few chances to get financed. We do this in order to avoid that our applicants spend time for a weak project in terms of its eligibility to public funding. On the contrary, if our experts see that the submitted project may be funded, it will get all our “industry-friendly” assistance.