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Background information
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Background Information
Technology Platforms
What is an ETP?
As defined in EURAB 04.010-final [January 2004], a European Technology Platform [ETP] is a major, pan-European mission-oriented initiative aimed at strengthening Europe’s capacity to organize and deliver innovation – strengthening the European-wide innovation process. An ETP will bring together relevant stakeholders to identify the innovation challenge, develop the necessary research programme and implement the results.
As envisaged by the European Commission, the development of ETPs can help to ensure the European investment in R&D rapidly and effectively:
- delivers benefits to the European citizen,
- creates competitiveness for European companies,
- ends the situation in which high EU R&D investment often produces fewer that expected benefits, and
- helps to give shape to the European Research Area [ERA] on a sector-by-sector basis.
In recent years, more than 25 ETPs have been initiated, covering sectors as diverse as Steel, Sustainable Chemistry, Textile and Clothing, Plants for the Future and Large Wing and Fuselage. A number have relevance to the agro-food chain and these will be clustered to ensure optimal exchange of information and best practice and minimal overlap of activities.
There are typically three stages in the development of an ETP:
- STAGE 1: Emergence and setting up – Stakeholders getting together.
The main actors are brought together by the Commission services to develop a Vision Document for the development in Europe of the technologies concerned over a timeframe of, typically, 10-20 years.
- STAGE 2: ETP activities and deliverables – Stakeholders define a Strategic Research Agenda [SRA].
Elaborating a SRA which sets the RTP priorities for the medium- to long term, including measures for enhancing networking and clustering of the RTD capacity in Europe. In parallel with the SRA a Deployment Strategy will be formulated.
The ETP will describe how it will establish mechanisms to mobilize the private and public investments required for implementation of the research and development strategies; identify challenges and actions related to education and training opportunities with a view to maintaining and enhancing a high-skilled work force in the medium- to long term; establish an ongoing communication process, with a view to raising public awareness and enhancing dialogue on the justification for concentration of efforts at European level in the technological field concerned.
- STAGE 3: Implementation of the SRA.
At this stage the SRA is implemented with the support of Community research programmes as appropriate, where they are compatible with the objectives of European research and competitiveness policies, together with other policies, where relevant. At the same time the SRA will make an important contribution to the preparation of the Commission’s proposals for future research programmes. The SRA should involve support from a range of sources, including Framework Programme and other sources of European funding, national research programmes, industry funding and third-party finance.
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