Competence Research Centres

• bridge the gap between scientific and economic innovation
• provide a collective environment for academics, industry and in some cases public services, as well as sufficient critical mass of people who can synergistically extend research and diffuse the resulting knowledge
• are an instrument to tackle the ‘European Paradox’, i.e.  the fact that Europe plays a leading role in the world in terms of scientific excellence and the provision of highly-skilled human capital, but largely fails to convert science-based findings and inventions into wealth-generating innovations

through

• pooling of knowledge
• concentration of infrastructure
• creation of new knowledge by performing different types of research (pre-competitive and competitive)
• training and dissemination of knowledge towards target groups of involved actors in a tailor-made way