Belgian Minister for SMEs Sabine Laruelle meets EUREKA at the European Business Summit

‘Simplification of research funding rules is a priority for the Belgian EU Presidency’
EUREKA has once again participated at the high-level European Business Summit held on 30 June - 1 July 2010 in Brussels. The summit, entitled ‘Putting Europe back on track’ and organised by BUSINESSEUROPE and the federation of Enterprises in Belgium, took place under the auspices of the current Belgian EU Presidency.
 
Tuomo Tuikka, project leader of the EUREKA ITEA 05024 SMARTTOUCH project, travelled from Finland to participate in the debate ‘SMES: Engines for Recovery,’ where he emphasised the importance of innovation in generating growth in Europe and referred to EUREKA as an example of how international collaborative R&D should be promoted.
 
Sabine Laruelle, Belgian Science Policy and SME Minister, was welcomed at the EUREKA stand by Lieve van Daele, Belgium’s High-level Representative and ESE Director Luuk Borg. Laruelle stressed that simplification of research funding rules is a priority for the Belgian EU Presidency and praised EUREKA for leading as an example thanks to its bottom-up approach. ‘Intellectual property is key to Europe’s efforts to boost innovation and support SMEs,’ she added. During her visit to the EUREKA stand, the minister experienced at first hand the EUREKA MEDEA+ SWANS project represented by Belgian organisation IMEC and spoke to project participants.