Brussels, 30/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - Dublin will play host to European ministers for industry and their counterparts responsible for research on 2-3 May. At the meeting, industry ministers will examine how to improve access to funding and internationalisation of SMEs, while research ministers will be looking at ways of optimising the benefits of investment in innovation for SMEs.
The first day of the informal meeting will focus on research and innovation. Under the chairmanship of the Irish minister, Sean Sherlock, research ministers will begin their debates with a working lunch, on the theme of optimising the innovation ecosystem. The secretary-general of the high-level group on innovation policy management, Stefan Schepers, will be the keynote speaker. The plenary session in the afternoon will be divided into two parts, with a number of workshops during the session. Commissioner Maire Geoghegan-Quinn will chair the first debate, together with Professor Fergus Shanahan from the University of Cork in Ireland. The debate will discuss ways of optimising the benefits of European investment in research as a means of job creation. This theme will then be put in perspective in three different areas: research, industry and SMEs.
The following day the meeting will focus on industry, the internal market and entrepreneurship. Under the chairmanship of their Irish colleague Richard Bruton, ministers will examine ways of supporting SMEs by looking at three different areas: access to funding - venture capital and its use in international trading companies experiencing good growth rates, internationalisation and the role of cities and regions as reservoirs of innovation and entrepreneurship. Commissioner Antonio Tajani will present his views during a plenary session. Professors Josh Lerner (Harvard Business School) and Thomas Cooney (Dublin Institute of Technology) and the head of the Irish Peachseed Limited company, Liam Shanahan, will lead the workshops on access to funding, the role of the cities and regions and internationalisation of SMEs. Ministers for industry will have an exchange of views over lunch where they will discuss the challenges for copyright in the digital age. (EH/JK/transl.fl)