EUREKA INITIATIVE TO BE CLOSELY LINKED WITH SEVENTH R&D FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME.

• Position: EUREKA Inter-Parliamentary Conference

The final resolution of the fifteenth EUREKA Inter-Parliamentary Conference (IPC) held in The Hague on May 26 and 27 brings a new reminder of the key role the EUREKA initiative can play in helping Europe achieve the Barcelona objective, that is to raise public and private investment in research to 3% of GNP by the year 2010.

European Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik told the meeting he wished to explore all possible synergies and complementarities between EU and EUREKA actions. "Two initiatives are currently under discussion: enhanced co-operation in the framework of European Technology Platforms and possibly Joint Technology Initiatives; and the launch of a specific activity in favour of research-intensive SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises)," he said. The Presidency of EUREKA will pass from the Netherlands to the Czech Republic on July 1 and the new team already plans to stimulate participation from the industrial sector, increase the initiative's political profile and strengthen member states' participation. The Czech Republic also intends to prepare a new EUREKA strategic scenario for presentation at the ministerial conference in Prague in June 2006, which will be discussing, among other topics, the initiative's evolution over 20 years.

During the IPC, the Nitin Scooter project was awarded the prestigious Lillehammer 2005 prize, which is given to the most promising environmental...