Kick Off Meeting of the Project

The city of Aalborg, in Denmark, hosted the first workshop of CLINES (Cluster-based innovation through embedded systems technology), a European project that gathers a number of European technology organisations aimed at boosting innovation and global competitiveness of European businesses in the  promising domain of smart cities. CLINES will explore how embedded technologies can make cities smarter, with a focus on increased energy-efficiency.

The 36-month project is funded by the European Commission through the 7^th Framework Programme. Participating clusters include Brains Business (Denmark), BICC NET (Germany), GAIA-Cluster TEIC (Basque Country) and DSP Valley (Belgium). Among its partners are technology centres, universities and national agencies, such as Aalborg Universitet, Fundación Tecnalia and IWT (Flemish Agency of Innovation, Science and Technology).

Through strategic cooperation, a common agenda will be established to:

• Help small businesses in their regions with investments in innovation to improve global competitiveness
• Establish new joint funding sources based on good practices in all regions
• Help develop smart specialisation strategies in all regions, building on specific individual knowledge and following common cross-border action plans.

In the first stage of the project, a knowledge map will be drawn of the regions involved indicating what they are focusing on in the domain of smart energy-efficient cities powered by embedded technologies.

‘Using the information on the map, we will prepare a working agenda that will help us go further to encourage business innovation and competitiveness at the global level in fields of high strategic interest,’ a member of the consortium said.

The CLINES partners stressed that the next stages of the project will be essential ‘to boost economic growth by creating an innovation environment encouraging R&D into new technologies and products.