In most European countries, international cooperation in R&D has become an outstanding policy aim. Accordingly, also the internationalisation of CRCs and CRC programmes - both within Europe and with countries outside Europe - plays an ever increasing role. Measures and activities range from the support of strategy building processes over the stimulation of partnering activities to the opening of programmes to foreign partners.

The background of this development is the intensifying international division of labour and knowledge that is a challenge for national innovation systems. Measures aimed at increasing the international embeddedness of CRCs should allow the CRCs to profit from international partners and projects and, at the same time, protect national interest - such as for example IP.

The vision is to develop CRCs into internationally acknowledged competence nodes in their respective thematic fields, attracting, among others, outstanding researchers and students and being a facilitator for location decisions of enterprises and their research centres.