21 years of Innovation through collaboration
21 years in the life of any initiative is significant achievement as it shows that the goals, methods and achievements of the community are maintaining relevance and value for the community.
As a EUREKA cluster, the CELTIC community held their first call for projects in 2003, resulting in selection of 15 projects based on quality and relevance and were supported by the national authorities and launched.
Whilst, the current statistics show that, there have been over 175 CELTIC projects which have generated at least 650 patents and 1500 products and services. Besides, this work resulted in almost 1500 higher level degrees (PhD & MSc) and stimulated more than 4500 scientific publications. This is the power of Collaborative Innovation.
For 21 years the CELTIC-NEXT process has continued to evolve to meet the ever-changing research requirements of the ICT industries, related academics and vertical sector organisations and, more critically, the national interests of the EUREKA Member States. In fact, what the CELTIC-NEXT EUREKA community has learnt over the years is that this marriage of the industry needs with the priorities of national interest can achieve a high return on investment for the supporting parties. This Win-Win type of collaboration presents a sustainable model.
Innovative Collaboration
However, we cannot assume things will always be the same. As we speak, new challenges in the way we prepare and do collaborative innovation have arisen in more recent times. Some involve the politics of the moment, having faster programs, and others raise security and sovereignty issues. Finding fair and practical ways to address such issues will test the industry players and the national authorities’ joint ability to always find the common ground of mutual interest. But having recently participated in exercises where the interested parties sat down around a table to discuss what improvements we can make to increase the value and effectiveness of the EUREKA Cluster programs, I have no doubt solutions can be found. Authorities and Industry have a shared ambition to make the clusters programs better, more relevant and easier to operate for the future. This willingness to evolve innovatively on how we do collaborative innovation is the key to future success for all.
The future vision of CELTIC NEXT
If we look forward in even the next 10 years, we can expect that the communications infrastructure will have become even more pervasive, people will have ceased to notice how they are connected but they will be quite confident that the connectivity of the required quality will always be there when they need it. Similarly, our devices – from our phones to our cars – will have capabilities not just to serve our needs but to anticipate our future needs and make sure the data and communications services are there for us. Industry will be transformed with fully digitised systems modelling and managing just about every industrial process.
Behind all of these visions will be a set of people who will work with their international peers in a collaborative way to advance the technologies, improve the social sciences and ensure a sustainable future for all. CELTIC-NEXT will work on enabling this vision.
Looking forward to the next 21 years !!
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