Concerted Action

CARINNA (the Champagne-Ardenne Research and Innovation Agency ) coordinates the Europe PRERI collective campaign “Take part in European research and innovation programmes”. Its aim is to raise the awareness of the laboratories and companies in Champagne-Ardenne of European programmes. The various regional institutional players take part in this action.

Objectives

The PRERI campaign is prepared to mobilise the skills deployed by all the centres of excellence and the regional science parks to maximise the chances of taking part in European research programmes.

At this prospect, the PRERI steering committee has set itself two linked objectives:

• the participation of 10 laboratories or SMEs in European programmes by the end of 2008,
• the preparation of 10 other applications to answer the calls for projects to be launched in 2009 in the frame of the Seventh Framework Program (FP7) or other programmes such as the ERA-Nets, Eureka or the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP).

_The scope for progress vis-à-vis the projects participating in the FP6 is considerable. This includes the joint “Biorefinery Euroview” project, coordinated by the IAR pole with the participation of CARINNA, which was launched in March 2007 for a period of two years. _In the framework of the FP7, the PRERI’s information and awareness-raising activities will be carried out in function of the nature of the calls for projects. These activities are all the more vital since the companies, which do not have much experience in dealing with these kinds of projects, need a support structure that offers genuine expertise. This is what is interesting about the PRERI; it notifies them of calls for projects, provides a diagnosis of project feasibility in the European context, takes care of looking for partners and reviews the file at the set-up phase, in addition to the existing measures set in place by OSEO and the Regional Council.

In respect of the more than 200 SMEs and laboratories registered in the PRERI database, this first phase of targeting needs to be fine-tuned to ensure that the most appropriate opportunities emerge. The assignment has been entrusted to the Alma Consulting Group, which is responsible for organising information days and developing a consistent language vis-à-vis all the players concerned. Two additional lines of approach have been defined to achieve this: the training of the prospectors in liaison with the economic fabric, which is mostly made up of SMEs and very small enterprises, and the raising of enterprises’ awareness in order to ensure that projects are forthcoming.

In the longer term, the PRERI campaign aims to trigger a genuine European dynamic at regional level: participation in European research programmes should become a reflex for all the laboratories and SMEs able to find added value in these programmes that is consistent with their development strategy.

Partners

Launched at the beginning of September 2007 for a period of 14 months, this programme has leading institutions on its steering committee: the French Agency for Innovation (OSEO), the Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the University of Technology of Troyes (UTT) and the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne (URCA), alongside the financial backers which are the Regional Council and the State (Regional Directorates for Industry, Research and the Environment – DRIRE).
Its players include the members of the regional Network for Technological Development (RDT) such as the departmental chambers of commerce and industry, the Regional Directorate for Research and Technology (DRRT), the Regional Directorate for Agriculture and Forestry (DRAF), the guild chambers and the chambers of agriculture.

Other participants include the “Materials and Surface Treatments” Regional Centre for Innovation and Technology Transfer (CRITT), the ENSAM, the “Industry and Agro-resources” (IAR) competitiveness cluster, the science parks and the regional centres of excellence in the fields of wood, textiles, construction, automobile engineering, building heritage, etc.
Finally, we can stress the importance of the URCA’s and UTT’s research laboratories, which are specialised in controlling the risks associated with logistics, computer systems, materials, etc. This concentration of regional skills has also aroused the interest of the communities of municipalities and towns in the European research and innovation programmes: their development officers have therefore been associated with the project.

Financing

The PRERI collective campaign has a budget of €238,000 financed by the DRIRE, the Regional Council and the European Regional Development Funds, granted in the framework of the cohesion policy.