Designed to identify and facilitate partnering, funding and collaboration within and between the participating regions, www.i-techpartner.eu connects technology research projects with innovative high-tech companies in order to create commercial collaborations across Europe. Innovation experts, corporate strategic partners and venture capital investors add further know-how to the programme, supporting and investing in the application and marketing of innovative technologies.

Technology transfer in Europe is lacking clear processes and focused execution, with support programmes typically trying to connect researchers and entrepreneurs. But this alone has proven to be ineffective. That is where i-techpartner steps in - it provides a pragmatic answer to Europe's significant innovation challenge.

i-techpartner helps regional and national governments to create economic growth in Europe from within regional settings. i-techpartner actively profiles research, clusters technologies with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and involves relevant investors and corporate partners early on. As a result, SMEs can prosper through entering into relevant and effective technology transfer, into strategic co-operations and into investment partnerships.

To achieve its goals, i-techpartner uses a number of regional and pan-European events and its new interactive online community with search facilities to screen and match participants. Initially, the participating European regions will showcase their best research projects from local Universities and research centres. With hands-on advice of innovation experts, the commercial aspects of these projects will be fine-tuned.

The most advanced and most promising research projects and applications will be presented to potential strategic partners and industry experts on a pan-European level in order to establish international collaboration and technology transfer. Networking facilities are backed by online tools to maintain the flow of information and communication between participants.

Especially Europe's regions and regional development agencies can help local researchers and young innovative companies to become successful leaders in their field. "Our agency has significant research assets that are potentially available for industry collaboration or transfer. However, we need effective methods to clarify the application and market areas where the research adds most value", explains Hans Rode, Director & Head of Department - Development at The Swedish Road Administration.

An improvement in the way technology is transferred from the laboratory to commercial markets is a key aspect in generating competitive companies in Europe. Rode adds, "this programme [i-techpartner] will help us define and profile the best potential markets for our research assets and identify partners. We look forward to transforming our research into business providing the best return for our research investment."

William Stevens, founder and chairman of Europe Unlimited, stresses the need to support innovation and entrepreneurship in order to achieve the ambitious Lisbon Agenda by 2010: "The gap between industry and academia in Europe needs to narrow. This collaboration network [i-techpartner] will provide access for entrepreneurs to selected research across Europe. It will make the participating regions, their SMEs and academic leaders more competitive in the global markets."

http://www.i-techpartner.eu/News/NewsManage/NfR%2b%2bUaS1uA%3d/NewsPreview.aspx

About i-techpartner
i-techpartner was launched with the support of 11 regions committing for two years with a critical mass of nearly 300 research projects and at least an equal number of small and medium sized companies (SMEs). i-techpartner is supported by the European Commission under the PRO-INNO Europe initiative of the FP6 activity Research and Innovation as the INNO-Action named Tech SME Partnering. New regions or clusters can join the on-going i-techpartner programme. It currently entails some 20 events across Europe and covers all innovation sectors (Life Sciences sector, the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) sector and the converging sectors in between).

About Europe Unlimited
Established in 1998, Europe Unlimited provides critical business resources to dynamic entrepreneurs, allowing them to successfully build and maintain healthy businesses. We serve Europe's innovative technology businesses. While focusing on dynamic entrepreneurs, we involve a large number of other stakeholders that are vital to the development of high-growth companies. We have built extensive market knowledge via research and acquired a reputation for staging excellent investment and networking events across Europe.

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Contact
Anneli Prohaska, Project Coordinator, Europe Unlimited SA, Place E. Flagey 7, 1050 Brussels, Belgium. Direct: +32 (0) 2 643 36 90, Main: +32 (0) 2 644 65 80, Fax: +32 (0) 2 644 65 81. Email: anneli@e-unlimited.com