The Pioneers into Practice programme is included as an activity in the Climate-KIC Business Plan 2012 as part of the Entrepreneurship pillar. It aims to change the day to day practices of professionals with current responsibilities in business, government and research. The narrow specialisation of these roles is unsuited to the demands of systemic innovation. Sector specific managers need to become boundary-crossing low carbon entrepreneurs.
Public Research Organisations Transfer Office Network (Pro Ton Europe) (2002-2005), es un proyecto financiado por la D.G de Empresas de la Comisión Europea en el marco de la iniciativa «Gate2Growth» (contrct nº IPS-2000-1104) y liderado por K.U. Leuven R&D, en cuyo desarrollo participan otras 13 entidades europeas.
The ongoing global economic crisis is seriously challenging advanced capitalistic economies. In the last year the GDP has fallen at dramatic rates, creating the conditions for the upsurge of unemployment, above all in areas characterized by specialization in mature industries. According to recent growth models and empirical evidence, innovation and knowledge creation represent the main factors able to improve the competitiveness and the long run perspectives of growth of countries.
The objectives of the project are to:
1. Identify productive interactions between researchers and society in four fields (nanotechnology, health, ICT and social sciences) that are funded within the Framework Program and in national contexts. For each of these fields we will analyse the range of expected and actual social impacts, and the interactions through which these impacts are realised.
2. Improve our understanding of the necessity of productive interactions as a condition for research to have a social impact.
The project is the continuation of the AQUAMETH project (2004-2005), that has delivered an integrated dataset across six European countries: Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, UK; a series of papers; and a forthcoming book (2006).
The scientific objectives of the AQUAMEHT - phase 2 project are:
a) consolidating and expanding the AQUAMETH methodology and dataset to new countries: Germany, Netherlands, Hungary and France;
b) exploring new issues using the integrated AQUAMETH dataset, in particular:
