EBN and the BIC Community celebrated their 25th Anniversary on last 27 January 2010 in the presence of many representatives from the European Commission who expressed their strong support to EBN and the BICs for the expertise acquired, the results achieved throughout this last century quarter and for the best practices developed by leveraging of EU initiatives aimed at the economic development of territories and innovative SMEs.
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Mr Mikel Landabaso
Head of Unit, Thematic coordination, Innovation, Policy Coordination, DG REGIO, EC |
Mr Robert Jan Smits
Director, European Research Area: research programmes and capacity, DG RTD, EC |
Mr Peter Droëll
Head of Unit, Innovation Policy Development, DG ENTR, EC
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Mr Lambert
van Nistelroiij
Member of the European Parliament, EP |
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Happy birthday !
“DG Regio invented and created EBN & the BICs in 1984, as probably its first initiative of “regional innovation networking”. DG Regio consistently supported the creation of around a hundred of BICs, and the early-stage deployment of the Network.
At the beginning of the years 2000, the BICs were mainstreamed as an EC-recommended tool for regions, and the EC-BIC brand & label was outsourced to EBN. This period also corresponded to the acceleration of the budget allocation to Innovation within the structural funds, the emergence of a number of regional innovation networks, and the rise of efficient regional innovation systems. As indicated in the future “EU 2020 strategy”, the EU need to further promote the incubation and growth of small innovative firms, across smarter economies & territories, with smart specialization, thanks to smart people and networks, such EBN. The pragmatic experience accumulated by EBN will be very useful to help increasing the efficiency of territorial ecosystems, where all core competences & stakeholders collaborate smartly along the various value chains.” Mikel Landabaso |
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Research & Innovation: a perfect marriage !
How to make sure the process which links research-knowledge-innovation-business provides more efficient results? Of course by creating a more favorable regulatory and higher education environment. For sure by enabling cross-border mobility, and increasing simplification. By integrating Research and Innovation policies, at all levels, both political, institutional and operational. But without enhancing entrepreneurship, without more and better start-ups & spin-offs, without seed-funds and early-stages efficient support mechanisms, this challenge will be more difficult. It’s vital to incorporate “innovation-based incubators” (BICs) within our Research & Innovation systems. That’s why the EU needs the EBN network to contribute to the deployment of the future EU Innovation plan.” Robert Jan Smits |
Wake Europe up!
“Quickly but by synchronizing its policies, programs and operators. By holistically enabling all ideas to grow thanks to credible, engaged and pragmatic support systems. The main challenges ahead of us are clearly identified: addressing societal changes, stimulation the demand, securing critical mass of finance, bringing innovation into research and education, providing better support to SMEs, ensuring openness and engagement! Engagement, support, openness, pragmatism, credibility: yes we need people, players and networks like EBN to help achieving this.” Peter Droëll |
Synergies, partnerships and open innovation !
“So much has been said about the importance of helping innovation-based SMEs to flourish and grow, but the policies should still be optimized for reaching that goal. Of course , the FP7 could be more SME-friendly, the KICs are just kicking off, and many other areas could be improved.
But there are reasons to hope. Synergies between FP7, CIP and the budgets earmarked in the structural funds are probably going the right way. The European Digital Agenda clearly addresses the fantastic potential of the digital economy. The concept of Territorial cohesion embrasses new combinations of public & private funds, and territorial open innovation eco-systems emerges. Another reason of optimism is the observation of the incredible leverage effect a rather modest public-private initiative such as EBN had on local & regional economies, also probably thanks to its open networking structure through place-based BICs and its open innovation mode. I hope many will find inspiration in the EBN story and I wish you the best for the next 25 years.” Lambert van Nistelrooij
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Mr Michel Courtois
Director of Technical and
Quality Management at
the European Space Agency |
Bringing Space down to earth !
The European Space Agency is active in an incredible number of sectors & technologies (telecom, navigation, observation, security, advanced materials,…) and is strongly engaged in technology transfer. One of its line of activity is to support technology-based start-ups and incubators, and as the EC did, ESA has outsourced the animation of its dedicated network ESINET to EBN!
This development has helped the BICs community across Europe to understand the power of downstream applications of space technologies, space systems, and more particularly of satellite navigation, geo-localization, location-based services, mobile telecoms, …with the result of boosting the dealflow of projects integrating the use of EGNOS and Gallileo systems: this is really the next challenge of ESINET and EBN, good luck” |
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Former EC representatives from DG REGIO who had participated actively in the creation of the EBN network in the early eighties and who promoted throughout the last two decades the beauties of the BICs were honoured by a special award for their oustanding contribution to the EBN reputation and present acknowledgement.
Picture from left to right: Mr Francesco Pettini, Mr Carmelo Messina (Former Head of Unit at DG Regio), Mr Desmond Fahey (EBN President from 1994 to 1998) and Mr Joe Mulcahy. |
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"With the BIcs and their European Association EBN, we were among the first to broaden the innovation concept, going beyond the limits that would focus exclusively on industry and adding to it the institutional, cultural, cognitive and emotional components of "inno-genetic" environments and behaviors. A conceptual change which was necessary to understand innovation in an economy where the immaterial aspect has become predominant over the material one. Today EBN and the BICs are more than ever undoubtedly modern: their organised mobilisation of local and regional potential entrepreneurs, the validity of public-private partnership, the help to the creation and development of innovative activities and the imperious neccesity to work as a network to facilitate the exchange and the optimization of BICs operationnal methodologies. As a matter of fact we preceded, 20 years earlier, the Lisbon Strategy". Carmelo Messina |