The Latvian presidency was dedicated mostly the core topics from the perspective of EU economy, growth and jobs: Competitive Europe, Digital Europe, Engaged Europe. A great part was also dedicated to the Research and Innovation area, which is foreseen to become a significant EU prosperity booster. A concrete outcome was the WIRE 2015 high-level conference, which took place in Riga on 4-6 June 2015, and which focussed on stressing the major challenges and emphasizing the importance of the key issues in this specific area.

The aim of the conference was to promote research and innovation investment in regions and Member States, as well as to discuss the new policy instruments for the programming period 2014-2020. On top of that, the speakers tried to highlight the potential of innovation and knowledge, think and discuss how to narrow the innovation split among European regions and how to optimize the Smart Specialization Strategies.

During the Conference, speakers from all around Europe debated on the following topics:

  • Towards jobs and growth: boosting research and innovation investment at regional level;
  • Meeting the implementation challenge: rolling-out and scaling-up the implementation of Smart Specialization Strategies;
  • The challenge of Open Data;
  • Maximising the impact of the available funding instruments: the Synergies Challenge to reduce the innovation divide

The NCP_WIDE.NET NETWORK represented the project and its idea. We had our stand which served as a point of information for participants, speakers and guests. We used the opportunity to point out the importance of and relevance of the Horizon2020 program, the role of NCPs and Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation under the program.

CONTACT

National Contact Point for Research Programmes of the EU
ADDRESS: ul. Krzywickiego 34, 02-078 Warsaw, Poland
TELPHONE.: +48 22 828 74 83 ext.: 273
EMAIL: [email protected]