20-21 of May The XIIIth Innovation Forum 2010

The Russian government recently published a strategy for Siberia’s economic development through 2020. The plan, drafted by a working group of scientists, regional government officials, and key business leaders, strives to make Siberia more than just a source of natural resources by diversifying its economy and encouraging the development of its high-tech, science, and tourism industries.

Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn announces today nearly ЕВРО () 6.4 billion of European Commission investment in research and innovation. The package, the biggest ever, covers a vast range of scientific disciplines, public policy areas and commercial sectors. This funding will advance scientific boundaries, increase European competitiveness and help solve societal challenges such as climate change, energy and food security, health and an ageing population. Around 16,000 participants from research organisations, universities and industry, including about 3,000 SMEs, will receive funding. Grants will be awarded through «calls for proposals» (invitations to bid) and evaluations over the next 14 months. Many calls will be formally published on 20th July. This package is an economic stimulus expected to create more than 165.000 jobs. It is also a long-term investment in a smarter, sustainable and more inclusive Europe. It is a key element within the EU’s Europe 2020 Strategy and in particular the Innovation Union Flagship, which will be launched in autumn 2010.

Augmented reality tours of real monuments, instant visualisation of virtual objects on living cityscapes and user-generated, digital story telling around famous landmarks are just some of the new applications made possible by breakthrough European research into mixed reality. This is the city, 2.0.

This report is an evaluation of Russia’s transportation sector. It proposes courses of action to be taken to arrest the transportation decline and to manage its transition to a system more suited to a market based economy.

Bioplastics, football-shaped molecules, GPS technology, hydrogen fuels cells and three-dimensional scanning systems — the fields covered by the winners of the European Inventor Award 2010 range from ecology and nuclear physics to information systems and satellite-based navigation. The European Patent Office (EPO) and the European Commission today honoured the five prizewinners from Germany, Switzerland, the USA and Canada at a gala ceremony in Madrid under the presence of Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia of Asturias.

EU Member States continue to improve their innovation performance, according to the 2009 edition of the European Innovation Scoreboard, and the difference between the leaders and the catching-up countries is narrowing. Although the majority of available data predates the beginning of the recession, there are signs hinting that the good progress of recent years may now be faltering.

Hundreds of events are being organised in 37 countries for the European SME Week 2010, which will mainly take place between 25 May and 1 June, but will run throughout May and June. This initiative will showcase the support available to business at the European, national, regional and local level. Under the slogan ‘Training business champions’, it will also provide inspiration and practical help for the existing and future generations of entrepreneurs.

For the first time in the history of the United States, a delegation of 20 leaders from the top Silicon Valley venture capital funds is coming to Moscow from May 25th to May 27th. The delegation will also include representatives of the US State Department.

AROUND the time that Apple Computer was making it big in California, Andrey Shtorkh was getting a first-hand look at the Soviet approach to high tech: he guarded the fence keeping scientists inside Sverdlovsk-45, one of the country’s secret scientific cities, deep in the Ural Mountains.

According to RIA News the XIIth Innovation Forum with more than 1000 participants from Russia and foreign countries has started its work with an international conference about problems and perspectives of the development of regional innovation systems.