SBRA, which was established in Brussels in 1999, is an international non-profit organisation connecting business and research communities in Slovenia with EU institutions and other public and private bodies at EU level. Members of SBRA, both from the private and public sector, represent a wide-spectrum of Slovenian interests, particularly from the fields of business, research and regional interests.

EREF-2007 Forum

Under the high patronage of the Committee of the Regions, the already traditional Nova Gorica Forum will be addressing important issues regarding the implementation of the Lisbon Agenda in European regions.
The focus of EREF-2007 is public RTD funding and communication and the role of structural funding in supporting knowledge-based competitiveness. Besides stakeholders from business and RTD, representatives from regional and local authorities, as well as those from EU institutions, European associations and networks will exchange views on good practice in creating conditions for successful Lisbon-type reforms and making RTD the backbone of their development effort.

The majority of forum participants will come from science and technology parks, universities, research institutes, clusters, centres of excellence and technology oriented companies.

Benefiting from analytical reports being prepared within the project such as ‘Building and Improving Support for RTD Policy and Public Spending’ (BIS-RTD), which is being funded by the EC, the participants of the Forum will gain insight into the experience, successes, effective instruments and challenges of European regions in building knowledge societies and linking research with economic operators to enhance and support the creation of new technologies and other innovations.

The Forum will also provide opportunities for meeting potential business and RTD partners, for inter-regional networking at EU-27 level, as well as potential partners from candidate and potential candidate countries. Having shared a common state for over 70 years, Slovenia as a whole, along with the border region of Gorisko, traditionally plays the role of a natural gateway to the countries of the Western Balkans. This explains why this region is contributing about a third of the Forum’s participants.

RIB Network

The mission of the Research, Innovation and Business Network (RIBN) for Central and South-Eastern Europe is to act as an interface between the various levels and types of stakeholders along the value chain of the economies of Central and South Eastern Europe. The Network aims to encourage and facilitate interaction between its members and related bodies at local, regional, national, cross-border and pan-European levels, as well as to mobilise and combine dispersed efforts and support synergies of expertise and resources particularly of economic actors and research bodies in the region. A day prior to EREF-2007, SBRA (as secretariat of the RIB Network) is organising the RIBN Business Forum (May 30, 2007) in order to introduce the activities of the Southeast European Era-Net (SEE-ERA.NET), Canadian support for international research cooperation, and the financial advisory services offered by the EU.

The RIBN Business Forum will also include a match-making event where companies from EU-27 will have a chance to meet companies from candidate and potential candidate countries to discuss possible support with respective regional and/or national authorities and banks. Participants will also receive overviews of the development priorities of these countries and the EU-27 priorities for cohesion funding.

Article published in see-science.eu eJournal spring 07.