EUREKA Clusters at EBS 2015 Smart City: EUREKA’s InterCluster in the lead Brussels, 4 May 2015: On the occasion of the 15th European Business Summit (EBS), which will take place on the 6th and 7th of May 2015 at the Palais d’Egmont in Brussels, the EUREKA initiative and its clusters will promote the Smart city initiative launched last November in Basel. Cities and communities around the world face difficult challenges. 50% of the world’s population lives in urban areas. This is expected to rise to 60% before 2025. As a result, the pressure on city infrastructures will require enormous redesign and capital expenditure. Frost & Sullivan estimates a world market potential of $1.5 trillion in 2020 for the Smart City market in segments of energy and water, transportation, mobility, healthcare, building, infrastructure and governance. EUREKA, the intergovernmental initiative has been at the forefront of innovative products, processes and services for 30 years with a unique and constant “industrial bottom up” approach. It has contributed to Smart City applications and solutions with a number of projects. Through these projects, EUREKA has tried to address the technological challenges aimed at adopting Smart City solutions and proposes innovations to be used across city sectors. Since 2010, more than 100 projects contributing to smart cities and representing B€ 1.1 of public and private funding have been labelled by EUREKA. The InterCluster Committee estimates that such projects could represent up to 2 B€ by 2020 and urges EUREKA Members States to provide adequate support. The major part of most Smart City projects are initiated by industry led consortia gathering large companies and SMEs, typical of EUREKA projects and in particular Clusters. EUREKA Clusters are committed to encourage and facilitate collaborative innovative proposals addressing smart cities. EUREKA Clusters are the entry point for Smart City projects driven by industry, focused on innovative systems, solutions and services. Jean Luc Mate, InterCluster Committee Chairman stated: “We aim to increase interest and project participation in smart cities. It is important to highlight the fact that there has been a lot of interest from companies to use the EUREKA platform for Smart City projects since a number of years. We will encourage more the industry to enable business models and empower people”. About Clusters: EUREKA Clusters are strategic initiatives proposed and led by industry. Clusters facilitate innovative projects involving a strong industrial participation spanning large companies and SMEs as well as research institutions and public organisations. About EUREKA: EUREKA is an intergovernmental organisation for market-driven industrial R&D. It is a decentralised network facilitating the coordination of national funding on innovation aiming to boost the productivity & competitiveness of European industries. The network integrates over 40 panEuropean economies, but also includes Israel, South Africa, South Korea, and Canada. Following a bottom-up approach with projects being in any technological area with a civilian purpose, EUREKA has been the driving force of innovation in Europe for 30 years. More information here: www.eurekanetwork.org/smart-cities
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