Brückenbildung NRW - the Project

First and foremost, the project reaches out to innovative stakeholders in business and science and raises their awareness towards the synergies that exist between the two funding programmes. Clusters, as the interface between enterprises and funding experts, play a key role in communicating relevant information.

Project objectives

Improve conditions in regional and European funding systems in order to raise incentives for the use of synergies
Step up the transfer of results from EU funding into the regional economy as a stimulus for the development of innovative new products, processes and services
Foster greater and more successful participation by NRW stakeholders in the Lead Market Competitions and encourage them to take part in Horizon 2020 in order to enhance North Rhine-Westphalia’s significance in cutting-edge European research and further expand its ability and capacity for innovation
Sensitise all stakeholders towards potential synergies

Work packages to link funding programmes:

Analysis of NRW participation to date in the EU’s Framework Programmes
Evaluation of already existing synergies from EU research funding and NRW structural funding
Survey of the potential offered by the new funding instrument “Innovation-oriented Public Procurement”

Amongst the most important measures are the strengthening of innovation capacity through knowledge and technology transfer as well as networking in the area of cutting-edge European research (upstream) and the enhancing of application and commercialisation potential through knowledge and technology transfer into the lead markets (downstream).

Project team:

ZENIT Centre for Innovation and Technology in North Rhine-Westphalia (ZENIT GmbH), Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany (Contractor)

Dr. Uwe Birk	Dr. Bernd Janson
Tel.: (0208) 30004 49	Tel.: (0208) 30004 22
E-Mail: bi(at)zenit.de	E-Mail: bj(at)zenit.de

DLR Project Management Agency at the German Aerospace Center, Bonn, Germany
(Sub-contractor)

Matthias Woiwode von Gilardi

Tel.: (0228) 3821 1654

E-Mail: Matthias.Woiwodevongilardi(at)dlr.de