TNO (Netherlands), Joanneum Research (Austria), VTT (Finland), and TECNALIA signed agreement today.

Bizkaia Technology Park, 23 April 2008. Today, TECNALIA Technology Corporation signed an agreement with three leading European corporations, to establish the Joint Institute for Innovation Policy (JIIP), an international organisation supporting research-based innovation policies.

The Brussels-based Joint Institute for Innovation Policy will be aimed at boosting cooperation between its partners for the globalisation of both private innovation systems and public innovation policies.

Resulting from the alliance between TECNALIA, TNO (Netherlands), Joanneum Research (Austria) and VTT (Finland), the JIIP will strive to give a boost to innovation policies in Europe and beyond.

The Institute, chaired by Jos Leijten, will specialise in multidisciplinary research and research-based consultancy. It will focus on international aspects in the appraisal of the future of technology, innovation and society, and on monitoring and assessing the impact of research, development and innovation strategies and policies, building on the deep knowledge of technologies and sectors which the parent organisations have. Over 5,000 people work at the Institute’s member institutions, which have founded a dedicated research team of 120 researchers and technicians.

TECNALIA is to take part in the JIIP’s activities through the Corporation’s Innovation Systems Unit.

The JIIP’s mission combines and enhances those of its founding members, adding an international dimension to them. The Institute will consolidate innovation policies concerning development, link technological knowledge to research into innovation policies, and take the founding members’ strategies to the global level.

The JIIP’s founding organisations consider that there is room in the newly established Institute for additional partners that could contribute their know-how to its mission in the future.

The initiative is expected to increase the number of operations and international projects –mainly in Europe– developed by its members, as well as to establish a knowledge-based network of researchers who actually started cooperating in 2006. Eventually, the JIIP is to reach the critical mass required to grow in Asia and America.

TECNALIA –technology corporation comprising Azti, ESI, Fatronik, Inasmet, Labein, Neiker and Robotiker– estimates revenues amounting to €118 millions and a staff of 1,400 by the end of 2008.

TECNALIA’s Innovation Systems Unit, involved in the JIIP project, specialises in three lines of activity: regional development models and policies, dynamic corporate and social innovation, and innovation management.