THE NETWORK

The 2012 EIT and ACES Awards Yearbook contains detailed profiles of this year's winning companies, EU Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou's vision on innovative entrepreneurship and an introduction by Chairman of the EIT's Governing Board Alexander von Gabain.

New laws on both sides of the Atlantic are changing the way patents will work. How can this historic convergence help inventors - and the economy? Special report of a Science|Business conference that took place in Washington on 7 May 2012.

This study, built on a growing pool of academic research about the state of industry-university collaboration, offers concrete lessons and recommendations from experienced managers on both sides of the divide.

Investors play a key role in identifying high-potential opportunities and accelerating such companies’ success. The prosperity of the European economy has recently been greatly stimulated by booming success stories such as Skype, Spotify and last.fm. These rather rare, ‘outlier’ success stories are attracting many investors to put money into technology opportunities with potential high returns.

Two awards programmes for start-up innovators came together on 21 February 2012 in Brussels: The first start-up awards offered by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), and the fourth annual Academic Enterprise Awards (ACES) offered by the Science|Business Innovation Board. Together, the two programmes bring together 21 young entrepreneurs from across Europe, to compete for seven awards.

This ACES 2011 yearbook celebrates the achievements of Europe’s academic entrepreneurs, and charts Europe’s progress in building a new culture of innovation on campus.

This new study shows ICT investments could cut healthcare costs for key ailments by more than 35%.

This report combines new research and analysis on open innovation with focused interviews of major participants in the European innovation system. The recommendations comprise an informal ‘charter’ for EU open innovation policy. The study was conducted by Prof. Henry Chesbrough of ESADE Business School and the University of California, Berkeley and Prof. Wim Vanhaverbeke, of ESADE in Barcelona, Vlerick Management School and the University of Hasselt, in Belgium.

When it comes to healthcare, if the US and Europe worked together they could cut costs, spur innovation, and tackle their common health problems, according to a group of experts that met in Washington DC.

The European Commission is planning new policies to ‘modernise’ universities. The Science|Business Innovation Board calls on the EU to push for universities that are more flexible, responsive and autonomous actors in the knowledge marketplace