Europe

Antoni Subirà, Chairman of The Competitiveness Institute's Board of Advisors and Catalonia's former minister of industry, have been invited by European Commissioner for Science and Research Janez Potocnik to join a group that will identify priority actions for the EU to boost its investment in research.

Baltic Development Forum just finished its 7th annual Summit in Stockholm 16-18 October. More than 500 prominent CEO's, prime ministers, mayors, and academic experts met in Stockholm in order to discuss how innovation and competitiveness can help secure future growth and prosperity in the Baltic Sea Region. The summit was co-organised with VINNOVA and hosted by the City of Stockholm and the Swedish government with Nordea as official Summit Partner.

Automotive, aeronautic and train industries benefit from the organisation of a cluster in Rhône Alpes, France. More than 70 participating companies and institutions near Lyon and Grenoble lead in knowledge about Noise, Vibration and Acoustic comfort for the transport industries.

Chambre commerce Lyon

The German management office kompetenznetze.de, in cooperation with the The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and Invest in Germany, recently published four innovation reports on German networks of competence.

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin announced plans in July to spend 1.8 billion US dollars on 63 industrial projects spanning from aerospace to medicine.

The northern town of Biella used to be the home to the finest and most well known wool factories in Italy. Now many of the weaving and dyeing workshops have closed under pressure from cheap foreign competitors.

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.

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.