Under the high patronage of the Committee of the Regions, the fourth Forum – addressing pertinent issues of implementing Lisbon Agenda in European regions – is taking place in Nova Gorica.

This year the Forum has two main goals. Firstly, it will contribute to raising awareness among knowledge stakeholders on the strategic importance of comprehensive and effective implementation of all aspects of Lisbon policies. Secondly, the adoption of a number of specific recommendations to be addressed to EU institutions, national and regional entities as well as all categories of knowledge stakeholders to formulate and efficiently implement knowledge society policies through learning from best practice cases from around Europe.

Several Lisbon coordinators in European regions are expected this year and they will exchange experiences in implementing Lisbon Agenda policies.

The special focus of EREF 2008 is the role of private public partnerships and private funding in the fields of RTD, innovation and education. The Forum is expected to encourage and motivate participants in enhancing their knowledge based competitiveness and contribute to accelerated realization of the concept of European Research Area.

Before the Forum in April and May, series of preparatory workshops in Graz, Trieste, Prague, Istanbul and Novi Sad will be organised by EREF partners. The proposals of conclusions and recommendations from these workshops will be presented to the Forum on the second day in presence of Commissioner for Regional Policy Prof. Danuta Hübner and President of Committee of Regions Mr. Luc Van den Brande.

The working languages of the Forum are English, Slovenian, Italian, Serbian and Croatian.

In order to facilitate active and productive involvement in Forum deliberations, the participants will receive before the event the following two documents:

1. Analytical Compendium of EU decisions and recommendations in the field of the development of knowledge society, with particular emphasis on financing research, innovation and education;
2. Directory of schemes and support programmes in the EU, Member states and European regions for research and innovation projects.

The Forum will also provide participation with opportunities to establish fruitful contacts and to hold exploratory discussions about possible joint projects.

In order to benefit effectively from the match-making process, please fill out the Project Fiche that you will find at www.eref.si at your earliest convenience. There will be also opportunity for participants from South-Eastern European countries to discuss with invited representatives of the EU institutions and to collect the latest brochures, reports and manuals.
Members of several other European networks, such as Lisbon Regions Network, NIROC, IGLO, ERRIN, RIBN are also expected to actively participate in the Forum.

To register for the event and to find out how to get to Nova Gorica, please go to the EREF-2008 portal at www.eref.si.

Thanks to a subsidy from the Slovenian government there is no registration fee for EREF-2008.

Further information:
Boris Cizelj
Slovenian Business and Research Association (SBRA)

www.eref.si