european & uk collaboration

Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda European media revolution – viability through innovation Keynote address at the Media Lounge event of ACT, EGTA, WFA, AER, ENPA, EPC, FAEP Brussels, 30th June 2010, European Parliament. Excert:

• I will always defend media pluralism. It has a vital role in our democracy; it is an anchor of European values. This does not mean that I think state subsidy or regulatory intervention are the only or the best ways to defend pluralism, although they may have a role to play. But it does mean that I believe in the continuing evolution of the dual system (of public service and commercial broadcasters) and that I consider pluralism as a non-negotiable principle.
• I do not have favourite technologies or companies; for me the idea of public versus private is a false choice – we need both. Quality content and a level playing field are also crucial. When we have all these things that is when consumers have the chance to exercise real choices.
• Europe should not become a media museum. My goal is to play a role in making digital transformations as painless as possible. This is also a very exciting time and my goal is to get Every European Digital. Helping you to transform helps me to get Every European Digital.
• Bring me specific requests and I will give you specific answers. You need to be specific.

click link to read above to read about policies…

Conclusions

I understand the temptation to avoid disruptive change. But as Winston Churchill once remarked – you should walk hand in hand with change lest it grab you by the throat.

As you grapple with that challenge, let me assure you I do not want to make that transition harder. But at the end of the day you must know that my job is to promote pluralism in general, not one platform or one group of players in particular.

I said Europe must never become a media museum, and I mean that. Picasso’s Cubist masterpiece Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was published exactly one hundred years ago. He left his Rose period and embraced the future. I hope you do the same.

Tags: Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, pluralism | Category: european commission, policy | Comments Off

Reinhard Buscher, Head of Unit Support for Innovation at DG Enterprise & Industry is the initiator of the European Creative Industries Alliance. He explains how it might ideally work to an attentive audience at the European & Creative Industries Summit in Brussels yesterday.

It is a departure for the European Commission to promote a network that will draw heavily on leveraged private sector funds and should be strongly led from industry. Thus far their work has been very much wrapped around bidding into and delivery on pre-defined themes. €7.5m euro are on-the-table to stimulate a total of around €100m of activity. The Alliance will establish a cooperation platform and will start with a call for proposals, bringing together the regions and national initiatives. ECIA is looking for 3-8 partners willing to run the show. It expects these partners to involve as many regional and national alliances as they can bring in. They will need to commit money and time to the project.

The partners will be expected to establish information services for CI on, for example, where to find access to finance. Also, explaining how to build trans regional links to others. “We expect this cooperation platform to make as much noise as possible.”

They do not want to fund events … expecting partners to spearhead these anyway, instead the cooperation platform will share good practice, toolkits, roadmaps, etc. Special mention was made of the use of structural funds for the creative industries. Alliance members should come up with good ideas on how to use structural funds in support of Creative Industries. €80billion was made available for structural funds in total across Europe, 2/3rds of this is still available! ‘Good projects’  that use the structural funds and support innovation might involve urban development or cluster development.

Separately, the Alliance wants to see new policies being developed and piloted that improve cluster management and promote working across related fields and policy areas..

Reinhard’s team would like to see a new Pan European Investment Fund for the media industry … the possibilities for Alliance projects are almost endless!

In all of this, the private partner activities are crucial, so the Alliance can only fund up to 65% of each project, the rest must come from public/private partners.

If this Creative Alliance is successful DG-Enterprise & Industry wants to replicate it in others areas, next is ‘Space’.

The formal launch of this Alliance should be later today, 23rd June 2010.

Tags: DG Enterprise & Industry, European Creative Industry Alliance, network, Reinhard Buscher | Category: clusters, european commission, funding, knowledge transfer network, policy | Comments Off

The European Cluster Observatory presents the 2nd in a series of priority sector reports, which analyse clusters in sectors of especial importance to the future of the European economy. The report covers the Creative and Cultural Industries. The study details the industries’ status in 250 regions and shows where the industries’ 6.5 million employees are clustered.

Download the report at    www.clusterobservatory.eu/upload/CreativeAndCulturalIndustries.pdf

The authors are Professor Dominic Power (Uppsala University) and senior analyst Tobias Nielsén (Volante).

Tags: clusters, european cluster observatory, research | Category: clusters, research | Comments Off

The consultation on the green paper closes by the end of July 2010. We need to comment! It asks many crucial questions on the future place and funding for creativity, culture and innovation.

http://ec.europa.eu/culture/our-policy-development/doc2577_en.htm

Tags: creative industries, culture, public consultation | Category: european commission, policy | Comments Off

The Europe 2020 Strategy was formally adopted by th European Council on 17th June 2010. Eco-innovation, digital developments and new skills are the drivers for future growth in Europe and the focus of the Europe 2020 Strategy.  The plan for the coming decade is to get back to basics. This means sound national finances p rimed for new developments and a stronger, more prosperous Europe.

Developed in response to the global financial crisis, EU leaders hope Europe 2020 is the right answer to counter the high levels of unemployment, poor structural growth and substantial levels of debt facing Europe today. Its success depends on Europe acting collectively and with greater coordination.

The Europe 2020 Strategy reaffirms the goal of boosting research and development (R&D) spending in Europe from 1.9% of gross domestic product (GDP) to 3%. Another goal is to reach a 75% employment rate for men and women, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20%.

As part of the strategy, the European Council also endorsed the first flagship initiative of a digital agenda for Europe. The European Commission was invited to present other flagship initiatives by the end of 2010, and to report on the digital agenda’s progress by 2011.

There are concerns by many that the Digital Agenda 2020 – upon which much of this strategy is built – does not recognise the importance of creativity, creative innovation, culture and social innovation as a major driver for economic growth and adding long term by enriching society.

http://cordis.europa.eu

Tags: Digital Agenda, Europe 2020 | Category: european commission, policy | Comments Off

The European Commission, together with national competition authorities aims to ensure that there is free and fair competition in the European Union.

A company which receives government support obtains an unfair advantage over its competitors. Therefore, the EC Treaty generally prohibits State aid unless it is justified by reasons of general economic development. To ensure that this prohibition is respected and exemptions are applied equally across the European Union, the European Commission is in charge of watching over the compliance of State aid with EU rules.

As a first step, it has to determine if a company has received State aid, which is the case if the support meets the following criteria:

1. there has been an intervention by the State or through State resources which can take a variety of forms (e.g. grants, interest and tax reliefs, guarantees, government holdings of all or part of a company, or the provision of goods and services on preferential terms, etc.),
2. the intervention is likely to affect trade between Member States,
3. the intervention confers an advantage to the recipient on a selective basis, for example to specific companies or sectors of the industry, or to companies located in specific regions,
4. competition has been or may be distorted.

The European Commission has developed a clear framework for State aid measures which are in the common interest of the European Union and thus allowed. These include developing disadvantaged regions, promoting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), research and development (R & D), the protection of the environment, training, employment and culture.

Under the State Aid Action Plan the European Commission is continually improving/amending state aid rules to ensure that they are better suited to encourage Member States to contribute to the Lisbon Strategy.
Key activities undertaken by DG Competition include:

• DG Competition Home Page
  State Aid Home Page
  Vademecum Community Rules on State Aid
  http://europa.eu/pol/comp/overview_en.htm
• This statement is from West Midlands in Europe’s web site – a member of UK Brussels Offices group on State Aid.
• vetting financial support given to companies by EU national governments (state aid);
• cooperate with other competition authorities around the world.

Tags: European Commission, state aid | Category: european commission, help, state aid | Comments Off

The European Commission has a range of policy departments, covering different areas. These include:

• Agriculture and Rural Development
• Climate Action
• Competition
• Economic and Financial Affairs
• Education and Culture
• Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities
• Energy
• Enterprise and Industry
• Environment
• Executive agencies
• Maritime Affairs and Fisheries
• Mobility and Transport
• Health and Consumers
• Information Society and Media
• Internal Market and Services
• Justice, Freedom and Security
• Regional Policy
• Research
• Taxation and Customs Union

Of key relevance to the Creative & Digital Industries are:

• Education and Culture
• Enterprise and Industry
• Mobility and Transport
• Health and Consumers
• Information Society and Media
• Internal Market and Services
• Regional Policy
• Research

http://ec.europa.eu/about/ds_en.htm

Tags: Brussels, European Commission | Category: european commission, funding, help, policy | Comments Off

The themes for FP7 programmes are summarised at Cordis-Europa

http://cordis.europa.eu/themes/home_en.html#cloud

Two of these are especially relevant from a Creative & Digital Industries perspective.

Information and Communication Technology

potentially relevant topics for digital media include:

INFORMATION PROCESSING, INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Technical aspects of information systems, computer hardware and software, data processing, systems design, advanced systems architecture, expert systems, artifical intelligence (AI) … computer assisted translation..

ROBOTICS

Artificial Intelligence Applications … applications in medicine and manufacturing

ICT APPLICATIONS

e-health, work environments, knowledge-sharing and management systems, digital media

NETWORK TECHNOLOGIES

Internet applications, future and emerging technologies

Test facilities and methods; applied metrology; biomedical analyses; chemical analyses; enviro=ental analyses; verification methods; recording devices; non-destructive testing; on-line testing.

Social and Economic Concerns

Category: european commission, funding, programmes | No Comments »

NESTA has developed a set of resources to encourage the development of social innovation.
The Social Innovator Series is the culmination of a major two year collaboration between NESTA and The Young Foundation to develop a rich, practical resource for social innovators. It is a collection of publications and accompanying website that reveal the vast potential of a new social economy.

Unlimited Advantage – is a series of investment readiness schemes for Social Enterprises seeking funding. NESTA sees huge growth potential in the social enterprise sector, and has put a lot of effort and money into both a venture capital scheme to support social enterprises, and support to make then investment ready.

Tags: NESTA, social innovation, venture capital | Category: UK, funding, help, programmes | No Comments »