A few days ago, as part of the European Economic Recovery Plan, the Commission launched four Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs).

Please find here the draft version Annex 5 RECOVERY PACKAGE: PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP INITIATIVES1:
- FACTORIES OF THE FUTURE (FOF)
- ENERGY-EFFICIENT BUILDINGS (EeB)
- GREEN CARS (GC)

With the approach of these cross-thematic calls, not only breakthrough innovation is needed to propel the EU to the forefront of knowledge-based competitiveness, but also a target of transition to greener, more sustainable practices are expected. The European Commission aims to provide a contribution of 50 % of the total R&D budget in 2010-2013, with matching investment coming from the private sector. In particular, for ICT related topics (8 Calls are open for ICT) a budget of 220 million EUR is available, which will offer increased opportunities to support innovation in SMEs.

Ideal-ist, the most successful international partner search network for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the EUs Framework Programme opens its partner search service to the four calls for proposals, which opened on 20 September and closes on 12 December this year.

This worldwide ICT support network “Ideal-ist” has been providing its services for 14 years, helping to interpret the ICT work programme of the Framework Programme, submitting project ideas in line with the Challenges & Objectives, finding the right partners for projects and bring consortia together for proposals.

Not only Newcomers and Small and Medium enterprises (SMEs) are using Ideal-ist! Also Academia, Non-profit Organisations, larger Companies and public Administration, Newcomers, Research Organisations and consultancies are helped

• by using an effective Quality check against predefined criteria which support the proposer e.g. to have better focused proposals submitted and hence increase the chances of being retained for funding. Besides the Quality team, the National Contact Points are also a great support to proposers.
• by offering a unique and fast partner search tool, which is also beneficial for enhancing the chances for a positive evaluation and
• by a large international ICT network, which publishes each partner search in more than 65 countries worldwide, so more than 60.000 contact addresses are reached.

Ideal-ist coordinator Mohsine Chefki highlights the proven success: “The level of responses generated by Partner searches during the first six Calls in the 7th Framework Program has demonstrated a high activity: appr. 21.000 responses generated (Expressions of Interests) by interested organisations, which gives an average of 45 responses per Partner Search launched. In recent years we had a success rate of almost 100%!
This means almost every proposer who launched a partner search via Ideal-ist, found a key partner for their project.

To support preparation of proposals for the Research Public Private Partnerships, an Info Day was held on 9 July in Brussels, where Ideal-ist participated with an booth. Around 850 participants attended the event which was opened by the new Director General of DG Research, Mr. Robert-Jan Smits.

Afterwards a good overview of the activities going on in the PPPs was given by industrial representatives.

The aim of this event was also to provide information about the second Cross-thematic Coordinated Calls related to the PPPs which will most likely be published on 20 July 2010. In particular, the research areas open were explained and these can be found in the so-called 'Annex 5'. This document is not yet officially adopted. It is therefore subject to change in the course of the adoption process.

All presentations will be made available as soon as possible on this website