The JRC Macro-Regional Innovation Week 2018 will focus on Science and Technology knowledge for policy support and on collaboration with the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission’s science and knowledge service, which supports EU policies throughout the whole policy cycle.

The event will promote the opening of the JRC’s research infrastructures and laboratories and showcase JRC’s technical and scientific competences, in particular in the field of agriculture, environment, energy, transport and biotechnologies. This will also be the occasion to present key results of JRC’s Scientific Support activities to the European Union Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR) that may be relevant to other macro-regions in particular for the Western Balkans.

In his recent speech on the State of the Union, Commission President Jean Claude Juncker announced a forthcoming Strategy for the successful accession of Serbia and Montenegro to the European Union, with a perspective of accession to the EU in 2025 and he also stressed the need to maintain a credible enlargement perspective for the other Western Balkans countries.

In this context, JRC’s Macro-Regional Innovation Week intends to promote the exchange of best practices and knowledge among local and international policy and decision makers, academics, financial institutions and various actors of innovation and technology transfer practitioners among Europe’s macro-regions, namely Danube, Baltic, Adriatic-Ionian and Alpine and Western Balkans.

The focus will be on supporting the development of a competitive innovation ecosystem across the macro-regions. These days of seminars and workshops will target contiguous regions that are relevant because of significant historical and economic ties and because of their inclusion in overlapping macro-regional strategies.

Location 

The Ispra site is situated close to Milan and the Swiss border and is the third largest European Commission site after Brussels and Luxembourg, covering an area of 167 hectares with ca 138 buildings hosting over 2000 staff. After 60 years of development, Ispra is firmly established as one of Europe’s leading research campuses. During the three-day event, participants will have the opportunity to visit the site and meet key staff.

Participants

The event expects to bring together innovation practitioners and regional stakeholders from EU member states and enlargement and neighbourhood countries covered by European Macro-Regions (the Danube, Baltic, Adriatic-Ionian and Alpine Region strategies) and the Western Balkans. Participants are likely to include: research and innovation policy-makers and representatives of academia and technology transfer offices. Participation will be on invitation only. The number of participants will be limited to 100. Selected participants from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo*, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, Ukraine, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey may request reimbursement of the travel and accommodation costs.

Apply to participate

Attendance to the event is by invitation only and if you wish to attend you are encouraged to submit an expression of interest (deadline 20/11/2017). More details on the programme and the application procedure can be found here.