Innovation Portal on CORDIS

A 2004 Innobarometer survey showed that there is still a lack of awareness amongst businesses, particularly smaller ones, of the support that the EU offers for innovation. CORDIS has therefore launched a new Innovation Portal at http://www.cordis.lu/innovation to bring together the latest relevant information from a range of sources. As well as the EU institutions, these include bodies such as national authorities and research organisations. The site is available in five languages: English, French, German, Spanish and Italian.

Navigation is straightforward using the left sidebar menu but there is also the quick links option to go directly to key topics such as funding. A helpful area of the site is the Innovation Policy section, which provides the important policy documents, benchmarking and key indicators data, and links to national and regional level support. The benchmarking Trend Chart provides overview reports on the state of play in 33 countries as well as the Asian, Mediterranean and NAFTA regions. The Innobarometer opinion polls and Community Innovation Surveys can be downloaded here and the European Innovation Scoreboard for 2004 is now available at http://www.cordis.lu/scoreboard. According to the latest (fourth) Scoreboard, Sweden and Finland lead the EU in innovation, with Estonia and Slovenia ahead among the new member states, while the UK slots into 8th position. As with the Trend Chart, country information includes data on Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Japan and the US as well as the twenty-five member states. The scoreboard itself is designed to measure 20 indicators including human resources, innovation finance, creation of new knowledge, and knowledge transfer and application.

The regional and national links bring together the key sites offering information, support and development opportunities. The list makes it clear what potential there is for missed opportunities through lack of awareness of the different sources of information and there is a sense that there must be some unnecessary duplication here. PAXIS at http://www.cordis.lu/paxis is the CORDIS Pilot Action of Excellence on Innovative Start-ups. Innovating Regions in Europe, or the IRE Network, at http://www.innovating-regions.org seeks to promote collaboration and exchange of good practice in developing regional innovation policies. RINNO, A Resource for Regional Innovation and Technology Transfer is a joint initiative DG Enterprise and DG Regional Policy with some support also from DG Research. The resource at http://www.rinno.com includes information about regional innovation schemes and includes case studies, final reports, evaluations, examples of best practice and newsletters. The archive may even include such detailed examples as specimen application forms. Anyone can use the Quick search by selecting the country or region and choosing areas of interest from the menu. However only limited information is made available in this way. It is also possible to register as a member with full access to all the information, including detailed documents attached to records. Members are also encouraged to submit new information to RINNO online and are able to search for contacts as well as topics. CORDIS has its own regional gateway at http://www.cordis.lu/regions/gateway.htm and its national R+D and innovation information service at http://www.cordis.lu/national_service/en so it is a tall order for SMEs to find their way through the maze.

Back in the Innovation Portal the services to enterprises page lists a variety of sources of support in areas such as technology transfer, intellectual property rights, start-ups, finance and planning with links ranging from the Innovation Relays Centres, Technology Marketplace, Business and Innovation Centres, Business Incubators, and Support Measures and Initiatives for Enterprises to Dialogue with Business and the EU Public Services Portal at http://europa.eu.int/public-services/index_en.htm.

The Innovation Portal also includes information about research and funding opportunities as well as articles, studies, and other documents and publications on innovation. Altogether the portal collates and makes available a wealth of information on the topic and provides a valuable single starting point for businesses both large and small.