The Green Sector and EU 2020: BioEconomy, Research and Innovation

The EU is developing a more and more explicit and economically powerful innovation strategy. “The Innovation union” is a fundamental part of “EU 2020”, the EU strategy for growth and employment developing Europe into a knowledge-based, powerful and economically competitive continent in the fast changing processes that now takes place globally. A knowledge based bio-economy is a central part of EU 2020, where biological resources from land and sea provide the basis. The Knowledge Based BioEconomy (KBBE) comprises goods and services, but also new processes and various engineering and scientific disciplines. It offers extraordinary possibilities for research and innovation for the Swedish actors who cooperate and coordinate their efforts. The Royal Academy of Agriculture and Forestry (KSLA) invites you to a seminar to discuss in what ways people active in the green sector can make use of and influence the EU 2020. Thus KSLA offers a platform to the green sector to develop and strengthen the influence of the sector in the EU research and innovation program. Small and medium-sized enterprises, universities and institutes have great potential to increase their participation in – and influence on – EU priorities of research and innovation. Despite a fairly good international reputation, the Swedish green sector economy has hitherto played a minor role in the EU family. The EU research and innovation policy is not basically influenced by the individual country´s economic and political power. Instead, important factors seem to be industry´s and university´s capability to common initiatives, close contacts, proper organisation, efficiency and capacity to make use of new knowledge for new attractive products and services. The 12th May seminar invitation is directed to all interested persons in industry, universities/institutes and governmental authorities interested in contributing to future innovative development of the green sector. We will discuss with people strategically placed in the Commission, listen to a good example from Germany and get experiences from ongoing EU-activities at Swedish enterprises and universities/ institutes. The competence and capacities that some governmental authorities offer to “get under the EU skin” will also be presented. The morning programme will be held in English, and the afternoon programme partly in Swedish and partly in English. http://www.ksla.se/sv/retrieve_file.asp?n=2538&t=