EU-Japan Newsletter, December 2009

 EU-Japan Center for Industrial Coperation issued EU-Japan Newsletter, no 4, for December 2009

EU-Japan Center for Industrial Coperation is a joint venture co-financed by the European Commission and the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). Its aim is to foster the development of industrial cooperation between companies from both regions through training programmes for businesspeople, for EU and Japanese students and researchers, and through information services and an industrial dialogue.

This occasional newsletter is produced by the EU-based office of the EU-Japan Centre, and is primarily intended to provide EU/Japan-related  news.

 This issue contains:

• EC-funded programmes - calls for applications

• Seminar on Smart Grid

• Industrial Policy seminar on Consumer Protection

• Funding & Career Opportunities Fair for EU Researchers and Students

• EU-Japan Aerospace Cooperation in Research and Technology Workshop

• Science & Technology Agreement signed with the Japanese Government

• The 2009 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard

• French Mechatronics invited to Japan

• Intercluster ‘09

• EU-Japan News in Brief and Calendar

1. The European Community signs an Agreement on cooperation in Science and Technology with the Government of Japan.

On 30 November 2009 the European Community (EC) and Japan marked a firm commitment to strengthen their collaboration in research by signing a Science and Technology (S&T) Coop-eration Agreement. This agree­ment will help them identify common research priorities and areas of common interest, such as energy and environ­ment, in which joint research efforts could be particularly promising. It will also provide a framework to establish mechanisms for enhanced S&T cooperation, such as reciprocal participation in research programmes, exchange of researchers, and coordinated calls for proposals.

2. Corporate R&D investment in 2008: a global increase with EU companies leading US and Japan

Worldwide corporate R&D investment increased by 6.9% in 2008, in spite of the economic crisis, according to the 2009 «EU Industrial R&D Investment Score­board» released in November 2009.

With an 8.1% increase, the R&D invest­ment growth of EU companies, defined as companies having headquarters wi­thin the EU, is significantly higher than of US ones for the second year, at 5.7%, and Japanese ones, at 4.4%.

Two EU companies feature in the top ten: Volkswagen in 3rd place with an R&D investment of €5.93 billion and Nokia in 8th place. The world’s biggest investor in R&D was Toyota Motor, with €7.61 billion.

The report also shows that compa­nies from emerging countries have the highest R&D investment growth. The 2009 “EU Industrial R&D Investment

Scoreboard” presents information on 2000 companies from around the world reporting major investments in R&D.

The set of companies the report covers comprises the top 1000 R&D investors whose registered offices are in the EU and the top 1000 registered elsewhere.

3. “Intercluster ‘09”

“Intercluster ‘09”, the conference on cooperation and building information exchange platforms, was held on 3 and 4 December in Brussels, Belgium.

By releasing its Communication of 17 October 2008 entitled «Towards World- Class Clusters in the European Union», and by establishing its «European Cluster Policy Group», the European Commission has set out the following objectives:

- generate optimal synergies between the cluster policies of individual EU Member States;

- promote excellence in cluster organisa­tion; and

- last but not least, bring about the emer­gence of world-class clusters.

European clusters are themselves aware that they are now at a major turning point: to attain «world-class» status they need to set themselves market object-ives (on growth markets), develop and implement a strategy for market leadership. This can only be achieved by reaching a critical mass through the formation of alliances with other clusters.

Based on this, Europa InterCluster, the Eu­ropean Agency for Cluster Cooperation, supported by the joint efforts of many European clusters, decided to produce a White Paper on the emerging of World- Class Clusters as a way to contributing to the work of the European Commission and more specifically, of the European Cluster Policy Group.