EUROPE: Breath of new life for EUREKA

The European collaborative research network EUREKA has strengthened its links with the European Union amid concerns that the independent initiative is "running out of steam". The closer connection with EU institutions has manifested itself in the Eurostars programme - a six-year, EUR800 million project to support high-risk research by small and medium-sized European companies, which is a joint EUREKA-European Commission initiative. The first projects for financing are now being analysed and the results should be known by the end of the summer.

Eurostars is part of a new strategy for EUREKA, largely developed by the outgoing president country Slovenia in response to charges that 23-year-old EUREKA had started to lose its ability to generate innovative international collaborative research projects, which is its main focus.

Ales Mihelic, General Director Science and Technology at the Slovenian Ministry of Higher Education, told a Commission Cordis briefing note on the issue that there was "a clear need for the network to be more proactive."

The new strategy also involved raising EUREKA's visibility and expanding its membership, increasing synergies with the EU, hopefully with other initiatives as well as Eurostars, Mihelic said.

Financing for the 133 Eurostars projects is being provided through a EUR100 million grant from the EU's seventh framework programme for research, EUR300 million from the 27 participating countries and the remainder from business and other private sources.

EU Commissioner for Research, Janez Potocnik, said Eurostars combined the strengths of the EU - which could guarantee funding and carry out evaluation and selection processes - and EUREKA, which was "closer to the market and more flexible". The programme would also help avoid duplication of effort, a major objective of the EU, Potocnik said

Slovenia has also sought to improve communication between EUREKA's large long-term initiatives known as clusters and the EU's joint technology initiatives. The latter are being established to pump public funding into key nascent industries such as hydrogen fuel cells "so as to pave the way for further synergies between the two sets of initiatives".

Portugal takes over the chair of EUREKA on 1 July. The independent programme has been particularly popular with innovative companies in Eastern Europe in recent years.

alan.osborn@uw-news.com