European Networking Event "Successful R&D in Europe" a complete success

On 4 March 2009, the Ministry of Innovation of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, together with NRW.Europa, held the first European Networking Event "Successful R&D in Europe" at Düsseldorf Airport.

Dr. Christian Patermann, Prof. Jerzy Buzek, Member of the European Parliament, and Prof. Andreas Pinkwart, Minister for Innovation, at the "Successful R&D in Europe - European Networking Event".

With over 200 participants, all seats were taken. Through the attendance of high-ranking keynote speakers such as Professor Andreas Pinkwart, NRW's Minister for Innovation, and Professor Jerzy Buzek, former Prime Minister of Poland and Member of the European Parliament, the event achieved its objective of bringing together a large number of universities, research institutions and SMEs from North Rhine-Westphalia with partners from other European countries in order to initiate new European research networks. Over 120 participants came from North Rhine-Westphalia and about 80 from other EU Member States. Most of the foreign guests originated from the event's partner regions: Poland, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg. In addition, numerous representatives from Turkey made the journey to Düsseldorf in order to establish contacts to potential co-operation partners.

In particular the possibility to make a short presentation in the three thematic workshops (Life Science, Energy, Nanotechnology and Production Technologies) followed by the opportunity for targeted networking in previously arranged discussion sessions in the intervals met with a positive response. The presentations can be downloaded here.

The concept of the European Networking Event had already been successfully implemented in 2008 with six regional networking events in North Rhine-Westphalia. Three further networking events are planned for 2009 in conjunction with calls for proposals within the European research funding programmes. Further information can be found in the newsletter under www.frp.nrw.de.

We would already like to take this opportunity today to invite you to attend!