Innovation Start-Up, EU Innovation Scorecard, Industrial Innovation,

I have just been introduced to a new innovation consultant (Gareth Davies twitter pseudo, "@microsinger") via The Institute, IOM3.

He directs the innovation business at the start-up  g2innovation, UK . Hope I got that right, if not drop Gareth a line at the link above.

The site already points to a most useful Benchmark paper on the position of Innovation within the UK. The latter is provocatively, but justifiably,described as a follower rather than a leader in the field of Innovation. Well to be fair the graph of EU innovation countries places UK well above the EU average on a scale 0 to 100 in percentage points. Only four countries lead UK. Two countries (Germany & Finland-Nokia surely!) by 10% or 1 point, and  two countries (Denmark & Sweden by 15% or 1.5 points.)

I have dug out the references for my readers and added more important pointers just to keep my fellow country men on their toes, g2innovation is housed in Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

 Industrial Innovation EU score card

Some EU innovation jargon

Innovation Union Scoreboard 2010

The 2010 Scoreboard draws on 25 research and innovation-related indicators and covers the 27 EU Member States, as well as Croatia, Serbia, Turkey, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. The indicators are grouped into three main categories:

• "Enablers", i.e. the basic building blocks which allow innovation to take place (human resources, finance and support, open, excellent and attractive research systems)
• "Firm activities" which show how innovative Europe's firms are (firm investments, linkages & entrepreneurship, intellectual assets); and
• "Outputs" which show how this translates into benefits for the economy as a whole (innovators, economic effects).

The Scoreboard places Member States into the following four country groups (see figure 1 below):

• Innovation leaders: Denmark, Finland, Germany, Sweden all show a performance well above that of the EU27 average.
• Innovation followers: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Slovenia and the UK all show a performance close to that of the EU27 average.
• Moderate innovators: The performance of Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain is below that of the EU27 average.
• Modest innovators: The performance of Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania is well below that of the EU27 average.

Ebooks available from the EU site are:
1.  PDF version of the Innovation Union Scoreboard 2010 [2 MB]
2. Innovation Union Scoreboard 2010 - Methodology Report [380 KB]
3. Country profiles translation in 22 EU languages [450 KB]

Best of Luck to our colleagues in Glasgow and to the whole Innovation Community - true to say the world needs you more than ever!

RSS Explosion-More EU RSS-Atom newslines - 17 First Class Choices Added Thoughout My Blog Series

Either scroll down selected subjects from the Europa-17 or from the Cordis-9, R and D subjects or visit the full Europa-17 list on Materials Chemistry Defined

Entry points and some specific subject selections on my other sites for easy browsing.

Tell how you are getting on. Have fun.

Nine Top Search Tips for Research and Innovation Ideas on the European Union (EU) Framework Programme 7 (FP7)

It is not always easy to know where to look in the huge European Research and Innovation data base for project ideas and possible collaborations, hence the following little guide from my recent experience. This follows my inclusion of the RSS feed link to EU programmes on the top left menu bar. Firstly it is well worth taking a squint at the Nine sub-feeds offered within the main entry. Of course there are new items, why not. More directly try the feeds to Offers, Projects, Partners and Results. Of course if you are a tried hand -What's New is the feed you are looking for. My own hit and miss attempt corrected let me share a few further indications of direct interest to researchers and innovators as follows:

An excellent place to start a search is the Find a Partner on the FP7 search page - Cordis Europa EU

The link I have given opens the search page with a menu bar on the left and a search box with four main key choices:

1. Search term or key words.
2 Profile type : Project proposal and/or Company Expertise.
3 Programme label eg FP7 (all of) or any one sub-project from a list of 34 sub-labels. multiple choices can be made.
4. A list of the world's countries allows one to seek a specific partner country.

I found that:
- ignoring steps 1and 4 and
-choosing project proposal and
-say a field such as NMP-Nanosciences, Nanotechnologies, Materials and new Production Technologies , all countries, (or Energy, Environment etc )

->an informative list of projects, contacts addresses and websites for further information can be generated and further reduced as required, to target precisely one's specific field(s) of interest.

In this knowledge sharing exercise I myself have learned a lot - only one but not the least of the added values in blogging.

Merry Xmas and have an enjoyable and profitable festive season and lots of good luck in 2009.