Greetings

This issue of the COMPERA newsletter informs you on the progress that the COMPERA project has made towards further implementation of its activities. These activities range from offering support to managers of Competence Research Centres (CRCs) in the management of their centres to activities focused on improvement of the support measures of the funding agencies/ministries. In this context COMPERA aims also to stimulate the international cooperation both on the level of funding agencies/ministries as well as the CRCs that are funded by these agencies/ministries.
In particular, this newsletter focuses on the new joint activities: the toolbox for CRC managers (to be launched soon), the COMPERA conference with focus on CRC policies and international co-operation, and a joint study between the COMPERA-partners on international collaborations between CRCs. In addition, you will find an update on the on-going activities like the CRC-website, the results of the workshop for CRC-managers on long-term strategies, new partners in the COMPERA network and relevant national news from our partners
We hope that the information in this newsletter is of interest to you. We are looking forward to meet you through our e-tools or in person at one of our events. Please contact us if you have any comments or questions or if you would like to have your news listed in our next issue or website.

01 Toolbox for CRCs available soon

The COMPERA team is currently working on a toolbox for CRCs. This is a compilation of good practice examples, references and links on topics such as :

• Governance and research management
• Monitoring and evaluation
• Public awareness and Public Relations
• International Co-operation
• Public Private Partnerships and
• IPR issues.

A first version of the toolbox will be available in early October. To check its functionality, we will send it around selected CRCs and ask them to comment on it. If you are interested in this consultation process, please contact us under compera@iwt.be. As a further step we will publish the toolbox on the COMPERA website. The integration of a discussion board is also in preparation.

02 International conference on CRC Programmes and Policies

On Tuesday 3 February 2009 COMPERA will organize a conference on Competence Research Centre programmes and policies in Düsseldorf (Germany). The conference will be organised in cooperation with the CREST working group on industry-led CRCs.
The event aims to bring together programme managers and policy makers in the field of CRCs to discuss and exchange views. The topics of the conference focus on good practices with the set up and management of programmes for CRCs, international cooperation and views on future perspectives of CRCs in the European innovation landscape.

More information on this event, including the programme, will be soon available on the COMPERA website, If you would like to receive further information and the programme by e-mail, please inform us : luebbers@vdi.de

03 Joint tender for study on international co-operation between CRCs

The COMPERA consortium will start soon a new joint activity. Nine COMPERA partners have agreed to co-fund a study that should identify the state of the art, needs and perspectives regarding the international co-operation of Competence Research Centres. The study will allow the identification, in a structured way, of the needs and opportunities that exist at the level of the CRCs regarding international co-operation (including co-operation with other CRCs). It will also address barriers, if any, that exist at the level of the funding agencies and Ministries to respond to these needs/opportunities.

read more ...

04 Successful workshop on long-term strategies for CRCs

On 5th March 2008 COMPERA organised a workshop for CRC-managers to discuss their opinions and challenges on long-term strategies of CRCs for durability. The aim of the workshop was to exchange views and experiences on this difficult topic and to support managers in their set-up and implementation of their CRCs long-term strategy. Five CRC-managers presented their long-term strategies and its implementation. These presentations were followed by an interactive discussion between the participants of the workshop. The presentations as well as an overview of the overall conclusions of the workshop are available on the COMPERA-website.

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05 Evaluation of COMPERA Website completed

The core content of the COMPERA website addresses the core needs of the CRCs represented in COMPERA. CRCs are mainly interested in finding new partners, becoming more visible and getting to know the CRC-landscape in their field of innovation (see figure). This is the main outcome of the COMPERA website evaluation that took place in July and August this year. 61 CRCs sent us completely filled-in questionnaires - an impressive response rate regarding the vacation period during which the evaluation took place.

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06 New partners in COMPERA :

• VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik (Germany)
  VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH (VDI/VDE-IT, www.vdivde-it.de) is a company founded by the VDI (Association of German Engineers) and the VDE (Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies), two of the biggest science and technology associations in Europe. VDI/VDE-IT manages various innovation programmes related to R&D, among which the initiative "Networks of Competence Germany" by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. VDI-VDE joined COMPERA to become an integral part of the ongoing process of creating a European research area on the level of competence centres. It is the goal to exchange the different European concepts of networking and clustering the scientific and technological expertise and - by learning from each other - to develop innovation tools that will be beneficial for the participating programmes.

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07 Trans-European call for proposals focussing on internationalisation for technology clusters and SMEs

In April 2008 the INNET project launched its first pilot call "Innovation Express". This call aims to foster the support for innovation activities between European clusters and/or between SMEs belonging to these clusters. The activities of the projects should focus on identifying, initiating, or developing a trans-European co-operation in view of increasing the clusters future joint innovation support or research, development and innovation activity. The call will be open until the end of 2008. The call documents and the submission guidelines are available on the INNET-website.

08 CREST working group on industry-led competence centres

In December 2007 a CREST (Committee for Scientific and Technical Research) OMC Expert Working Group was mandated to work and report on Industry-led Competence Centres, collecting the EU Member States approaches to the key aspects of establishing and managing competence centres with a view to developing recommendations on best practice. Ireland was selected to Chair the group, and the agency responsible is Enterprise Ireland. Work began in February 2008 and the final report is due for December 2008.

read more...

09 News from the COMPERA partners :

• Process started to establish Norwegian Centres for Environment-friendly Energy Research (Norway)
  A new Norwegian scheme “Centres for Environment-friendly Energy Research” (CEER) seeks to develop expertise and promote innovation through focus on long-term research in selected areas of environment-friendly energy, transport and CO2 management in close co-operation between prominent research communities and users.
  Read more...

• COMET - 2nd Call for Competence Centres (Austria)
  The competence centre programme COMET supports the building up of competence centres with a research programme jointly formulated by science and industry. The 1st Call allowed funding for 3 K2-Centres, 11 K1 Centres and 6 K Projects with a total of 125 million Euro federal funding. A 2nd call for all 3 programme lines is planned end of 2008, with an expected federal budget of about 125 Mio Euro. The selection procedure for K1/K2 Centres is based on a two stage procedure. K-Projects are selected in one stage. Participation of foreign partners is possible on certain conditions.
  Read more...

• VINNOVA’s Focus on Impact: now available in English (Sweden)
  This report describes the VINNOVA ambitions and activities that aim to understanding and increasing the effects of the VINNOVA commitment to research, innovation and sustainable growth in Sweden. The report briefly describes the different processes used by VINNOVA to secure the quality in the alignment and implementation from an impact perspective. However, the report focuses on the descriptions of and conclusions from the impact analysis made by VINNOVA since the start in 2001. From an international perspective, certain aspects are unique. The report is now available in English at http://www.vinnova.se/In-English/Publications/VINNOVA-Analysis.
  Two preliminary figures : impact measurement scheme and time-based evolution of impact logic assessment.