CORNET and EraSME are moving steadily towards each other. On June 9 and 10, 2009 both CORNET Council and EraSME Board met for the first time in Vienna, whereas the last meetings (Budapest and Paris) were already opened for mutual participation. From now on future Council/Board meetings will be organised and held jointly.

CORNET and EraSME have also joined forces by creating a Common Office.
The Common Office will - inter alia - provide organisational and administrative support to both initiatives, e.g.:
- editing and publishing marketing material (joint newsletter, general leaflet and call leaflets)
- assisting in integration of new partners
- dissemination of information (call statistics, programme portraits, project portraits, success stories)

Also other activities which are currently still performed by CORNET and EraSME individually, like call management, will be synergistically tuned to each other in the Common Office.
The Common Office presently combines activities from 12 persons working for CORNET and EraSME.

The Common Office has established a common website which acts as a portal to both CORNET and EraSME websites. The common website will provide latest news on CORNET and EraSME calls, events, projects, etc. and will act as a first single entry point to SMEs and SME Associations which are in search of financial support for research activities they want to acquire.

The web-address of the Common Office is: http://www.innovation-for-sme.eu
The Common Office can be addressed by sending an e-mail to: office@innovation-for-sme.eu

Joint CORNET-EraSME Council/Board meeting Vienna 9-10 June 2009


The Common Office - Vienna 9-10 June 2009

F.l.t.r.: Jeroen van den Brink (SenterNovem, The Netherlands), Kerstin Plaum (AiF, Germany), Johan Jäger (FFG, Austria), Djea Djeapragache (CETIM, France), Lisa Berg (FFG, Austria), Almut Büchner (Coordinator CORNET, AiF, Germany), Günter Külzhammer (Coordinator EraSME, VDI-VDE-IT, Germany), Claudia Ritter (VDI-VDE-IT, Germany), Stan Francke (SenterNovem, The Netherlands)