‘We will focus on the continuation of the good work of the previous Slovenian Chairmanship by improving the position of EUREKA in the new knowledge society and by being more proactive in reaching out beyond Europe,’ says Professor Manuel Nunes da Ponte, the new EUREKA High Level Group Chairman.

Nunes da Ponte believes EUREKA needs to adapt its policies to meet the demands of the global knowledge society — and that it has the flexibility to do this because of its bottom-up approach. The network needs a consensus on what rules and attitudes have to be modified so that, through EUREKA, European companies can find partners outside Europe where markets are growing much faster and where business opportunities are significant.
‘Over the years, we have become a network popular with small and medium enterprises (SMEs). These businesses need an existing infrastructure such as the EUREKA network to act as a go-between — big companies can do it more easily by themselves,’ he says. ‘One of our priorities will be to think about what and how to adapt, so that association with EUREKA becomes more attractive to countries outside European frontiers. Our companies will then have more confidence and will rely on us to help expand their horizons.’

Expanding membership
Portugal is also keen to continue expanding EUREKA membership. Although it now represents 38 countries, EUREKA still does not include all European countries. One action will be to convince those remaining to join up.
Nunes da Ponte also feels EUREKA should become more proactive outside Europe. Morocco has been an ‘associate country’ for some time, but Portugal is keen that it becomes more involved. ‘We have also been approached by South Korea and we know that other countries — Egypt and Canada are examples — are interested,’ he says. ‘So we want to more proactive: both internally, on how to make EUREKA more attractive to non-member countries, but also diplomatically, at government and other levels.’

Adding value to the label
A key objective of the Portuguese Chair is to examine ways of adding value to the EUREKA label. There is a need for a better communications strategy to help achieve this — a task already set in motion by the Slovenian Chair.
But communications alone cannot achieve this goal, says Nunes da Ponte. There are different ways of financing and risk-sharing in each EUREKA country and this lack of synchronisation has always been a problem. ‘The Eurostars Programme for high-tech SMEs marks a major advance,’ points out Nunes da Ponte. ‘We will concentrate on this landmark — the fact the EU has now approved the European Community top-up of national financing for Eurostars projects through the Framework Programme. This is a first.’
‘It also marks a clear change in our relationship with the European Commission. While the European Research Area concept is really interesting, Eurostars proves that EU programmes must adapt and one of the possibilities is outsourcing — empowering strong networks like EUREKA and giving them some financing. We will focus a lot on this opportunity.’

Raising political awareness
Finally, Portugal is keen to raise political awareness in each country where EUREKA is active. ‘We need more political attention paid to EUREKA,’ says Nunes da Ponte. ‘One of our decisions from the start was to have a Ministerial Conference [normally held only every two years]. We also wanted to have an Interparliamentary Conference (IPC), as it is essential to inform and have the full support of parliamentarians. So — perhaps surprising some members of the network — we decided to have both.’

The Portuguese Parliament has agreed to host an IPC in May 2009. Plans for the Ministerial Conference in June 2009 to close the Portuguese Chairmanship are even more ambitious — Nunes da Ponte believes Portugal can raise a lot of interest from ministers on changes in the rules for globalisation and reaching beyond European frontiers.
‘We are quietly confident that we will get a good level of participation, especially as our minister [Mariano Gago] has been involved for a long time and should be able to raise interest that might not be possible in other circumstances,’ he says. ‘We see this as a good opportunity to renew political support, especially at a time when such bottom-up networks are being increasingly exploited.’

Source: Press Release from August 28, 2008; EUREKA website.