(15 April 2010) What role can European macro-regions play within the European Union's Cohesion Policy? This question lay at the heart of a conference on Europe's macro-regions which took place on 13 April 2010 at the Committee of the Regions in Brussels. After an opening session with Johannes Hahn, European Commissioner for Regional Policy, participants discussed the potential and challenges of macro-regions as well as drawing lessons for the future. Sessions covered the existing EU strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, the planned strategy for the Danube Region, and a possible strategy for the North Sea-English Channel area. Adopted in 2009, the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region brings together regions from all eight EU Member States bordering the Baltic Sea. It is the first comprehensive strategy to target such a "macro-region" and has generated wide-spread interest across Europe.

Between 2000 and 2006 over one third of the EU budget was invested through cohesion policy and its three funds - the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the European Social Fund (ESF) and the Cohesion Fund. Focused on the ERDF, the Directorate General for Regional Policy has carried out a series of ex post evaluations on different aspects of the policy, including the transport and environment sectors. These two reports are now available. Key findings show that over the period, €34 billion was invested on transport, supporting the construction of 2,000 km of motorway and 4.000 km of rail. This accounted for 24% of all motorway development in the EU, and 13% of all high speed rail construction. Over 20 million inhabitants were served by waste water projects with an additional 14 million inhabitants connected to water supply.

Around 130 cluster policy-makers and practitioners gathered in Santiago de Compostela at the transnational conference on "Cluster, cluster policies and innovation networks in Europe" on 11-12 March. The participants discussed the role of clusters as innovation drivers and better practices of how to engage in international cluster cooperation, especially in the Atlantic Area among the partnership of the ATclusters Interreg IVB project lead by the Galician Institute for Economic Promotion (IGAPE).

CSC has launched a new video series "ON CLUSTERS" at the Cluster Observatory. "This series of three programs covers the most important aspects of cluster dynamics, cluster policy and management of cluster organisations", says program host Professor Örjan Sölvell. The series features a range of cluster experts, including Dr Christian Ketels, Dr Göran Lindqvist, Ifor Ffowcs-Williams and many others. In addition to the video series, the European Cluster Observatory also offers the accompanying free book - "Clusters: Balancing Evolutionary and Constructive Forces", also known as the "Redbook" - which can be downloaded together with the program series. The series will also be available on a DVD, which can be ordered free of charge.

Seven countries in Europe come together to develop a set of recommendations for services offered by local development agencies or regional poles of competitiveness and clusters. Development agencies from Belgium, France, Greece, Slovenia, Estonia, Malta and Germany will meet at technical workshops and site visits to understand the relationships between these agencies and clusters. The objectives of the meetings are:

• Identify best practices in services offered by local or regional development at the poles of competitiveness and clusters;
• Identify and analyze the existence and relevance of the pooling of these services;
• To analyze the possibility of transfer of such services between different European regions.

The Russian Economic Development Minister is planning to stimulate the development of innovative clusters. It will gather plans from regional governments by March 15 to decide on how much money will be allotted from the federal budget.

The "Regions of Knowledge" programme and the TRANS REG NCP project have been presented during the INTERCLUSTER Conference 2009 in Brussels. The objective of this two days conference were to contribute to the policy recommendations in the White Paper on the emerging of World-Class Clusters and to take part in the shaping of the new European Cluster Managers' Club.

More the 150 clusters form all around Europe participated to the interactive and output oriented event that was built around 2 "World Cafés". The World Café process helped to make visible the collective experience of all participants, through brainstorming discussion, thus increasing capacity for effective results and actions.

The TransReg Project was presented during the tool box part "Clusters and cluster cooperation" under the session titled "The European Commission tools and projects". Together with a presentation made by a representative of the European Commission, DG Research, about Regions of Knowledge Programme, the regional NCPs presented the tools and services they have developed for Research Driven Clusters. Great importance has been given above all to the promotion of the online Partner Search Facilities and database created to facilitate the participation to the RoK call for proposals.

Intercluster '09, a conference on cooperation and building information exchange platforms, will be held on 3 and 4 December in Brussels, Belgium. The main aim of the event will be to provide a meeting place for leaders of European knowledge clusters. The conference includes workshops, roundtable discussions, presentations, etc.

TRANS REG NCP will present the opportunities of the FP7 for research-driven clusters, as well as the services provided by the National Contacts Point Network.

A new call for transnational cooperation between regional research-driven clusters has been launched on 30 July 2009, under the programme "Regions-of Knowledge" (Capacities, 7th Framework Programme), in the field of "health-related economy".

The "Regions of knowledge" programme aims to strengthen the research potential of European regions, by encouraging and supporting the development, across Europe, of regional "research-driven clusters", associating universities, research centres, enterprises and regional authorities. The actions undertaken in this area will enable European regions to increase their investments and develop their commitment in research which contributes to economic development. In the current call, proposals should support economic development by boosting the competitiveness of health-related economy.

Proposals are invited to address the following objective: to analyze and integrate the research agendas of actors in regional clusters, to improve integration of research actors in regional economies through a Joint Action Plan and take measures towards its implementation, as well as to mentor regions of less developed research profile. The total indicative budget for this call is 16.95 million euro. The deadline for submissions is on 14 January 2010.

TRANS REG NCP, the trans-national network of the Regional National Contact Points, supports all research organizations, enterprises and regional authorities to participate in the programme and to find partners through the new online Research Driven Clusters (RDC) Database (online by 3 August 2009).

The RDC Database facilitates the emergence, operation and benchmarking of research-driven clusters. Validated proposal ideas are disseminated through the Network for highly competitive and successful projects to the EU call.

The RDC Database will be available through the project website: http://www.transregncp.eu/rdc_data_base.html

The Research Connection conference and exhibition took place in Prague from 7 to 8 May 2009 under the Czech Presidency of the European Union. A series of events was dedicated to research and regional development. The presentations are now available on the site:

• Cohesion Policy and Research (Structural Funds)
• Regional dimensions of FP7
• Maximizing synergies of FP7, Structural Funds and Collaboration of Academia and Industry for Central European Biotech Research
• Synergies between research and regional development
• International cooperation among clusters under FP

The trans-national network of the National Contact Points for the "Regions of Knowledge" programme has been officially presented in the "InterCluster2008" Conference which took place on 17 and 18 November 2008 in Paris as an official event of the French Presidency of the EU. This event was organised jointly with PRIT2008 (Paris Region Innovation Tour 2008). Danuta Hübner, EU Commissioner for Regional Policy, gave the opening address of this event that attracted more than 300 cluster representatives or cluster members - businesses, R&D, academia - from 30 countries (Algeria, Austria, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, UK, USA, etc.). The presentations are now online!
Presentation about Trans Reg NCP Network - Georgia Tzenou, NCP Greece

PRO INNO Europe call was published on 12 November 2008, and concerns the setting up of INNO-Nets and INNO-Actions with a view to fostering transnational cooperation on support for innovation. The deadline for submission of proposals is 12 February 2009. PRO INNO Europe initiative contributes to closer cooperation between innovation policy makers and public support organisations at different levels with a view to contributing to the development of new and better innovation policies in Europe.

The network supports research organizations, enterprises and regional authorities to utilize the opportunities offered by the 7th FP. TRANS REG NCP, the trans-national network of the National Contact Points for the FP7 "Regions of Knowledge" programme, supports all research organizations, enterprises and regional authorities to utilize the opportunities offered by the 7th Framework Programme for the development of research-driven-clusters.

TRANS REG NCP, the trans-national network of the National Contact Points for the FP7 "Regions of Knowledge" programme, supports all research organizations, enterprises and regional authorities to utilize the opportunities offered by the 7th Framework Programme for the development of research-driven-clusters.

ResPotNet is a 4-year project that aims to support research institutes and industrial communities in the EU's convergence and outermost regions, to fully utilise their research potential, to strengthen their capacities and to increase participation in the Framework Programmes.

INTERREG IVC is a programme funded by the European Union that helps Europe's regions establish partnerships, enabling them to work together on common projects. This is the third component of the Territorial Co-operation Objective of the 2007-13 programme for Cohesion Policy. The component is centred on two priorities: innovation and the knowledge economy; the environment and risk prevention. All 27 Member States are eligible as are Norway and Switzerland. The second call for projects has just been launched and will remain open until 30 January 2009. Applications must be sent to the programme secretariat based in Lille, France.

Two calls for proposals under the 'Research Potential' strand of the EU's Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Development - the European Union's main funding stream for research - have been launched and will remain open until 13 February 2009. The "Research Potential" programme aims at unlocking and developing the research potential of research entities established in the EU´s Convergence and Outermost regions.

The European Commission has just adopted a new communication on the outermost regions (OR). This communication follows a request from the Member States, who wanted to show the importance of the OR for the European Union as a whole. Far from the image of "problem regions", henceforth they are being regarded more favourably as "hidden treasures". Numerous projects supported by the European Union amply bear witness to the capacity of OR to specialise in leading-edge sectors and also provide vehicles for pilot-projects of benefit to the entire Union. The European Union has seven outermost regions: Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Reunion Island, the Azores, Madeira, and the Canary Islands.

The Committee of the Regions (CoR) and the Commission's Directorate-General for Regional Policy (DG REGIO) organised the "Open Days 2008: European Week of Regions and Cities" event, on 6-9 October 2008, in Brussels. The event hosted 120 sessions on the following topics: Innovating regions: Promoting research, technological development and innovation, Sustainable development: Regional responses to climate change, Cooperation and networking: Exchange of best practice in regional development, Looking forward: A European cohesion policy for tomorrow. The presentations are now available on the website!

The new call for proposals under the programme "Regions of Knowledge" has been announced on 3 September 2008. The budget of the call "Transnational cooperation between regional research-driven clusters" is 16.15 million euro and the deadline is on 27 January 2009.

The "Practical Guide to EU funding for research, development and innovation" that has been developed by the services of the European Commission to provide practical information on combining the different funding sources, advice for policy makers, etc. The Guide was presented in draft form by Commissioner Potočnik in conjunction with the recent conference on Research Infrastructures organised by the Commission and the Slovenian Presidency (Brdo, Slovenia, 5-6 March 2008).

The RegioStars 2009 Awards, the Awards that aim to identify good practices in regional development and to highlight innovative projects inspiring to other regions, have been launched in February. Applications must be submitted by 15 July 2008. This year categories are: Research, Technological Development and Innovation, Adaptation to or mitigation of climate change, Radio or television spot or programme that highlights the contribution of Cohesion Policy. The first RegioStars Awards were organised in 2008. Alsace, Oresund, Wales, the West Midlands, and Yorkshire and the Humber were the winners for innovative regional projects.