Research Policy in the framework of the European Cohesion Policy
Brdo pri Kranju Kranj, 17 November 2011 – Today began a two-day international conference on the present and future perspectives of Centres of Excellence “Research Policy within the European Cohesion Policy” organized by the Government Office for Local Self-Government and Regional Policy and the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology. Many domestic and foreign experts will discuss the importance of the Centres of Excellence in Europe and its results, and share experiences on scientific, business models and examples of good practice.
From the 4.2 billion Euros of the European Cohesion Policy funds, to which the Republic of Slovenia is entitled in the period 2007-2013, more than 1.7 billion Euros (40.7 percent) is meant for the implementation of the Operational Programme for Strengthening Regional Development Potentials 2007 - the 2013. In the framework of the public call for proposals for the development of centres of excellence in the period 2009-2013 eight centres of excellence were selected, almost 80 million Euros of the European Regional Development Fund distributed among them. Centres of excellence act in various fields of research activities from nanotechnology, polymers, non-metallic materials to complex systems, innovative technologies and others. To promote the concentration of knowledge in priority technology areas and horizontal integration in the chain of knowledge development is one of their fundamental missions. This involves comprehensive, interdisciplinary research and development programmes carried out on the basis of strategic partnership between the industry and the academia.
State Secretary of the Government Office for Local Self-Government and Regional Policy, Bojan Suvorov, MSc said he sees centres of excellence as a good instrument to promote cooperation between research institutions in the public sector and the economy because the knowledge and applications flow faster into products and services and thus contribute significantly to raising the competitiveness of the Slovenian economy. He pointed out that their importance is recognized by the Government of the Republic and during the financial-economic crisis in April this year the European Union increased funding to improve the competitiveness of enterprises and research excellence for an additional 196 million Euros. Throughout the programming period there were, within the Operational Programme for Strengthening Regional Development Potentials, 42 public calls for proposals carried out and 12 projects directly approved. This represents 98% of all funds available for the programming period. These funds have co-financed over 1850 projects out of which more than half are projects in the field of research, technological development, innovation and entrepreneurship. A tenth of the funding within the Operational Programme for Strengthening Regional Development Potentials has been allocated to tourism, transport, environmental protection, and the rest to the field of culture, information society, social infrastructures and a smaller part of the co-financing to urban renewal and rural development.
Igor Lukšiš, PhD, Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, saw the opening of the conference as an opportunity to exchange views on the Centres of Excellence and their future in order to “get the best result for society”. He said that the centres, already at this stage, justify their existence as their efforts led to more than 40 innovations and more than 20 patents. In addition they create an opportunity to strengthen international integration for the Slovenian researchers.
Director General of the European Commission's Regional Policy, Georgios Yannoussis, said that Slovenia has this year taken an important step in the redistribution of resources, including for the to support research and development. In his opinion Cohesion Policy in Slovenia is even more important in times of financial and economic crisis. He stressed that Slovenia has always drawn well on the EU funds – on this basis the European Commission defines Slovenia as a reliable partner.
At the conference, the President of the cluster for medical and environmental engineering and biotechnology in in Sant Petersburg, dr. Marina Girina, and business director of the Centre of Excellence for integrated approaches in chemistry and biology of proteins from Ljubljana CIPKEBIP, dr. Livija Tušar, officially signed a confidentiality agreement pursuant to which the Russian partners will agree on joint research projects or possible joint implementation of the transfer of knowledge in production.
