Europe, Middle East & Africa

Ainia Technology Centre, based in Valencia, Spain, has officially joined the European project CeFood.inc, a European project which is estimated to run until the end of 2006.

Amsterdam based biomedical companies, academic research institutions and medical centres have begun working together under the name of the Amsterdam BioMed Cluster. The cluster has been created in order to optimize access and effective use of the most renowned features of the research institutes and medical centres of Amsterdam.

Proposals for the project to create a framework for establishing the "Competitiveness Observatory" in Jordan.

The European Commission agreed on a proposal for a new EU programme for Research from 2007-2013. This proposal plans to increase Europe's competitiveness and growth, identifying knowledge as one of Europe's greatest resources.

Due to the changes in the global economy and the knock-on effect on the French economy, France has launched a wide-ranging industrial strategy focusing on the key factors of industrial competitiveness, particularly R&D innovation.

Kompetenznetze is a website arising from an initiative from the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education. Among descriptions of the different fields of competence in Germany it contains a section on international networks in 10 other countries like Finland, Canada, Austria or Japan.

Stockholm is to host the 7th Annual Baltic Development Forum Summit from 16-18 October 2005. It is being organized by the City of Stockholm, the Swedish government and in cooperation with VINNOVA, the Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems.

The Automative Cluster of Slovenia is organising its third Annual Convention and International Business Conference, 24 May, 2005.

A recent conference held in Jerusalem aimed to unite the region through its industries, especially clusters, in order to attract more businesses and tourists to the troubled region.

The European Commission has outlined its intentions to boost Europe's competitiveness and innovation through a new programme, which shall run from 2007 until 2013 with a budget of 4.2126 billion euro.