Bringing together thirty innovation agencies from all over Europe, the aim of TAFTIE is to share experience and best practices in support of research, development and innovation activities.
Luxinnovation, the National Innovation Agency of Luxembourg, joined the network in 2013 following a membership process that took nearly a year to complete.
Inside this international network, we have a very strong customer orientation, which allows us to compare and to share our experience and our wide range of business support services with other network members
says Ian Cresswell, Head of International Affairs and Chair of TAFTIE in 2019.
This Chairmanship is a unique opportunity for Luxembourg’s national agency to demonstrate its expertise to its European counterparts. In fact, Luxinnovation contributes more broadly to strengthening the role of Luxembourg as one of the leading European countries for innovation: Luxembourg ranks among the “innovation leaders” in the 2018 Innovation Scoreboard, published by the European Commission.
A Chairmanship under the sign of increased interaction between agencies
“This Chairmanship is built around four priorities: inclusion, interaction, innovation ecosystems and implementation issues” explains Pascal Fabing, Head of Corporate R&D and Innovation Support at Luxinnovation and Secretary General of TAFTIE for 2019.
TAFTIE agencies are all diverse due to their adaptation to local contexts. The various experiences accumulated can help other agencies in their evolution. Innovation has become extremely versatile in its forms. Supporting deep-tech companies in fields such as biotech or artificial intelligence requires a different approach than business model innovation or the platform economy, which is again different from the needs of a local craftsman. Extensive interactions between agencies can help us to find the most relevant instruments to nurture the growth of each single company. Finally, the Luxinnovation Chairmanship will focus on collecting the key knowledge of TAFTIE members in a white paper that will describe the issues that innovation agencies face when developing innovation ecosystems, especially the European State Aid Regulations.
Three workshops, with various themes for network members to discuss, will help to prepare this white paper.
Luxinnovation will also organise two conferences that are open to all. The TAFTIE Annual Conference in June will highlight the recent developments in mission-oriented research and innovation. The conference will explore how innovation agencies can change and adapt in order to focus more on missions such as Sustainable Development Goals. It will also investigate how innovation leads to positive impacts for citizens. Finally, in November, a Policy Forum on the role of Innovation Agencies in the Digital Europe Strategy, organised in partnership with the European Commission, will close this year’s Luxembourg Chairmanship.