Cohesion and cooperation

A 40-year legacy of innovation has led to more than just new products and solutions on the market. Eureka’s unique model supports international cooperation and greater cohesion between countries across Europe and beyond.

One of the model’s key strengths is that innovation is not driven by a single central organisation. Eureka’s flexible programme structure and its ‘business knows best’ principle allow project partners to define their own goals, ensuring that innovation is led from the bottom up. The decentralised nature of the network reinforces this bottom-up approach, which has been a hallmark of Eureka for more than four decades.

Eureka funding calls, launched throughout the year, are guided by countries and regions in the Eureka network, and give applicants enormous scope to set the direction of innovation. That results in research and development that is bottom-up and driven by the needs of the market and society.

But that is only half the story. The Eureka network has not achieved the impact it has by funding innovation in isolation. The vast majority of the Eureka network’s support for innovation is based on funding international cooperation.

Eureka projects bring together businesses of all sizes, as well as universities and research institutes from across the world.

Eureka projects bring together businesses of all sizes, as well as universities and research institutes, from across the world. While some partnerships grow from existing relationships, many are formed through effective matchmaking made possible by the local networks established by Eureka ministries and funding agencies. These networks play an important role in connecting new partners beyond borders and fostering international collaboration.

By baking international cooperation into the Eureka model, the impact of research and development is amplified and strengthened, benefitting organisations and economies.

This cooperation and its benefits extend to the ministries and funding agencies that power the Eureka network. They are a vital core of an innovation community that brings countries together.

Eureka creates lasting bonds between ministries and agencies from diverse national and regional contexts. The collective experience of these bodies in running national- or regional-level support schemes directly strengthens Eureka’s ability to design highquality international programmes, ensuring that new partners can be connected across borders and that collaboration thrives. It facilitates sharing the experiences and best practices learned from designing and managing successful national and regional support schemes.

One area where this cooperation is especially evident is in the way Eureka network programmes support Smart Specialisation Strategies. These strategies – part of the European Union’s Cohesion Policy – strengthen ties between EU Member States by helping countries focus their development and innovation efforts on areas of particular strength. Eureka also acts as a platform where national and regional representatives can meet, connect and exchange best practices, including insights into their national and regional strategies, wider government priorities and strategies that target areas where a country holds—or aims to build—technological dominance. By enabling national and regional ministries and funding agencies to shape their priorities through the calls they choose to participate in, Eureka projects naturally reinforce these strategic objectives and ensure that funding aligns with national and regional ambitions.

For 40 years, Eureka has brought its unique approach to supporting and growing innovation. A bottom-up model puts innovators in the driving seat, providing access to support without requiring a complex bureaucracy to guess where research and innovation is going next. The core principle of cooperation benefits both innovators and ministries and funding agencies, bringing countries, regions and organisations together to learn from one another and take away some of the risk of innovation. Taken together, these approaches – the Eureka model – support greater cohesion between the network and support key initiatives, like Smart Specialisation Strategies.

Nobody knows exactly what the future will hold, but with its unique approach, there is a good chance that Eureka will be powering the innovation that will get us there.