Press Release: Stronger together in ICT: Europe to pool private, national and EU research efforts in order to become more competitive

For the first time ever, the European Union is changing the method of financing key technological research by launching Joint Technology Initiatives (JTIs). The idea for JTIs came from the European Commission and was supported by EU Heads of State and Government at their recent informal summit in Lahti (Finland). JTIs will pool the resources of private industry, EU and national programmes to pursue ambitious common research objectives. The first JTI to be launched in early 2007 will be ARTEMIS. The ARTEMIS JTI will steer Europe's research in embedded computing systems, which are increasingly essential for many key industrial sectors. This initiative will act as a beacon for further such initiatives to follow. Industrial leaders and national and EU research experts are meeting on 21 November 2006 in Helsinki to further discuss this new method of European research funding.

European Commission: DG Communication: MEMO/06/436 http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/06/438&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

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