The European ICT Conference on Research and Development realized on January 29th and 30th, 2007 in the conference centre of Ceylan Intercontinental Hotel in Istanbul, one of the most attractive and impressive cities of the world. A highly informative and intense Conference agenda was prepared in order to present informative details on the 7th Framework Programme and to emphasize on the importance of SME participation to the FP7. The 2-days conference hosted important speakers from European Commission, European ICT Company Leaders and European Technology Platforms.

The first day speeches of the Conference pointed out the need of innovation with an emphasis on integration and collaboration between SMEs, universities and public sector. The importance of collaboration lies on the challenge that SMEs need to increase their knowledge base and R&D. SME participation to FP7 is crucial since SMEs are the key players in innovation process due to their high flexibility. Concerning the project proposals to be submitted to FP7, the necessity of preparing outstanding proposals in order to be successful is highlighted by the speakers. Speeches made by technology platforms’ representatives underlined the crucial importance of taking part in the technology platforms as these are the corporations orienting SMEs and R&D activities.

The Conference created a real dynamism with the 14 parallel networking sessions realized at the second day. 87 innovative project ideas were presented which led potential partners to meet and develop further the project ideas by bilateral talks. The event provided thus a beneficial opportunity to form project consortiums for the FP7’s 1st ICT calls of 2007. In this sense, the Conference attained its aim, as it was organized as an activity of 2 ongoing FP6-SSA projects (EASIER and SEE-Innovation projects) both having the objective of encouraging the ICT SMEs to join in the Framework Programme projects.

Leyla Arsan, TAGES CEO, making the closing speech of the Conference