The need to spark innovation invites many questions in this policy area including:

How could EU research and innovation funds engage the most innovative EU actors?
I don't know much about the research side of things, but on the commercial innovation side I think that the funds could help by encouraging the last generation of entrepreneurs to re-invest, teach and help the new generation. Maybe speak to the founders of Skype, Bebo, Playfish and find out what they think. Could tax credits, infrastructure support or something else help?

Europe’s universities and knowledge institutes perform to world class standards and push science to an ever higher level but small and medium sized companies (SMEs) hardly co-operate with these universities and knowledge institutes.

SPOCS partners invite you to a “Consultation meeting on SPOCS final results” on June 20 2012 (Permanent Representation of Austria, Avenue de Cortenbergh 30, Brussels). Within the context of starting a business and providing services on a temporary basis in another European country, SPOCS has led the work needed to realise true cross- border interoperability. This includes the realisation of technical solutions to support this but also helping identify equivalent documents in participating countries. We are now looking for broader commitment to help take this forward.

The DAE action 55 states that Member States should double their investment in ICT research by 2020. We're doing a study for EC to assess this and we're gathering evidence to measure it.

In particular we'd like to gather your views on:
- Which country is increasing substantially the level of investment in ICT Research?
- Are there dedicated research programmes that you would indicate as best practice?
- What other inspiring initiative do you know to increase the investment in ICT RD (e.g. tax credits, clusters)?

Thanks! We'll report back on results.