ITEA 2 Inter-Cluster Call 2007
The last few years more and more ‘Clusters’ or so called ‘Pôles de Compétitivité’ have been created in Europe. In these Clusters large companies, SMEs, universities and research institutes closely interact in the areas of production, R&D, human resource management, etc. These Clusters are regional and national nodes in a network that is becoming increasingly important for strengthening Europe’s competitive position. This is especially the case when these Clusters make use of their own unique competences that complement the competences of others. In this way the European industrial structure on nano-electronics and software-intensive systems could be improved considerably thus making Europe better prepared for the fierce competition on a global scale.
Improving the synergy between these European ‘Clusters’ is an essential element in the cooperation between Clusters. At a meeting that took place at the beginning of 2007 the representatives of several European Clusters expressed the need to strengthen the Inter-Cluster cooperation. This signal was picked up by the European Public Authorities resulting in a concrete plan to support an Inter-Cluster Call in 2007. The main conclusions presented in this plan were:
- Cooperation between Clusters should be cluster- and industry-driven;
- Projects should be of outstanding quality;
- No additional structures should be put in place; one should make use of the existing procedures within the EUREKA programmes ITEA 2 and MEDEA+;
- The challenge is to start in a practical way in 2007;
- Topics could be R&D, promotion and exchange of scientists.
Further discussions between the main stakeholders have led to the agreement to organise an Inter-Cluster Call in 2007 supported by ITEA 2. The core of this Inter-Cluster Call will be R&D activities between (2 or more) Clusters from at least 2 different countries in the area of software-intensive systems (ITEA 2). Other activities may include: SME fostering, standardisation activities, exchange of researchers, competence mapping, export promotion, etc. European Cluster Cooperation projects differ from regular ITEA 2 projects since they are embedded into their national Clusters and they may also include non-R&D aspects.
A pragmatic approach has been chosen whereby this Inter-Cluster Call will be merged with the current Call procedure of ITEA 2. In practice this means that the current ITEA 2 Call 2 will be open for extra Full Project Proposals (FPPs) – without the need to issue a Project Outline – supporting the Inter-Cluster Call. Deadline for FPP submission to the ITEA 2 Office was 21 September 2007. Project labelling took place on 31 October 2007.
Apart from the normal ITEA 2 evaluation criteria, for the European Cluster Cooperation projects the following extra evaluation criteria apply:
- Quality of the cooperation with the other clusters involved;
- Activities foreseen to continue the cooperation after completing the projects;
- Range of activities with respect to the cooperation (including SMEs).
Useful documentation
ITEA 2 Full Project Proposal template for Inter-Cluster Call
zip-file - 148 kB
This zip-file contains the extra FPP guidelines and FPP template for the Inter-Cluster Call. These documents are an addendum to the regular FPP documents (see below).
ITEA 2 Full Project Proposal template zip-file - 312 kB
This zip-file contains the regular FPP-relevant documents: FPP guidelines, an FPP template (MS Word file) and a project statistics sheet (MS Excel file).
For further information on this Call, please contact:
Erik Rodenbach
ITEA 2 Programme Coordinator
Tel: +31 88 003 6136
Email: erik.rodenbach@itea2.org
