The popular initiative by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 Work Programme aims to enhance access to finance for research and innovation
The Innovative Enterprise Week Sofia 2018 – Financial Instruments Fostering Research and Innovation is coming to Sofia on 14 June 2018. The event is a popular initiative of the European Commission, under the Horizon 2020 Work Programme with strong senior presence from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Investment Fund (EIF), aiming to enhance access to finance for research and innovation.
As part of the Bulgarian Presidency of the European Council, the goal of the conference is the attuning of European policy to encourage and support the brightest innovators and breakthrough ideas to scale into world-class businesses, using the availability and exposure of existing financial instruments.
Spanning seven years (2014-2020) and with a budget of €77 billion, Horizon 2020 is the biggest EU research and innovation funding programme ever. It is implemented via multi-annual work programmes. Last month the European Commission and the European Investment Fund launched a Pan-European Venture Capital Funds-of-Funds Programme VentureEU of EUR 2.1 billion to boost investment in innovative start-up and scale-up companies across Europe. This major step showcases once again the EU vision that support of innovation to scale-up are Europe's guarantee for competitiveness and sustainable growth.
The conference in Sofia will bring together private investment firms, corporate innovation offices, national or regional promotional banks and other relevant stakeholder groups such as public research organisations including universities. Additionally, tech start-up and scale-up innovative companies will be present.
The Innovative Enterprise Week Sofia 2018 will bring together policy makers on Research and Innovation from the EU Institutions:
Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for Science, Research and Innovation
Jean-Eric Paquet, Director General, DG Research and Innovation of the European Commission
Vazil Hudak, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank
Roger Havenith, Deputy CEO of the European Investment Fund
Hermann Hauser, Chair of the Independent High-Level Group of Innovators on establishing a European Innovation Council
Admission to the conference is open to all policy-makers, financial intermediaries (such as bank or other lenders and risk-capital funds), representatives of research, innovation and/or the business community (including SMEs and medium and large midcaps) or those interested in knowing more about the financial instruments fostering research and innovation.
REGISTRATION is free and open online until 1 June 2018: https://www.innoweeksofia2018.eu/registration/
The conference programme is available here: https://www.innoweeksofia2018.eu/programme/
For more information about the event please visit our website: https://www.innoweeksofia2018.eu/
About the Innovative Enterprise Week 2018
The Innovative Enterprise Week is a conference initiative by the European Commission organised twice a year in collaboration with the EU member state responsible for the Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
The international conference presents a platform for European entrepreneurs, innovative enterprises, researchers, start-ups, and investors, policy makers and financial intermediaries to meet, network and discover a world of possibilities to make their businesses successful. The Innovative Enterprise Week brings together high-level policymakers, financial intermediaries and representatives of the research, innovation and business communities.
The initiative started in 2015 in Riga during the Latvian Presidency and has had 6 editions so far, including in Luxembourg, Netherlands, Slovakia, Malta, and Estonia. After Sofia, the Innovative Enterprise Week will take place in Vienna, Austria in November 2018.
Contact: Natalia Natcheva | PR & Media Relations | +359 895 508 111 | [email protected] | www.innoweeksofia2018.eu
*This article is published as part of a media partnership between SeeNews and IEWSofia.