Innovations have ability to transform knowledge into the products and services. This is an complex process. What objectives were settled by EC for Innovation programme and how successfully it was implemented in Lithuania?

First of all let's start from overall statistics. During the years of 5FP European Commission through INNO Programme launched 12 calls. With Lithuanian partners participation were submitted 42 proposals, 12 of them were successful. Contracts with Lithuanian partners in these 12 projects will reach ~ 800 KEuros.

In the other part of the INNO Programme covering CRAFT projects scheme during these four years were submitted 2494 CRAFT proposals, and 884 retained for negotiations. By Lithuanian SMEs were submitted 35 proposals, 12 of them were positively evaluated with budget foreseen 1.3 MEuros. It must be pointed out that each third proposal with Lithuanian participants was successful - and this was a quite good result taking in to account that Lithuanian organizations in 5FP had first opportunity to exploit CRAFT scheme. It is clear that Lithuanian SMEs are interested in innovative technologies and research and are looking at the European programmes as possible solution for implementing their ambitious plans to introduce to the market new innovative products.

Concerning Lithuanian RTD system it can be pointed out that EC activities through INNO programme had strong impact on technology transfer stimulation processes, commercialization of research results, promotion of innovations and setup of innovative companies. Activities of established in Lithuania Innovation Relay Center as part of the network of 68 IRC in Europe was positively evaluated by EC.

In the area of innovation policy 5FP influenced also development of national innovation system, and studies provided under this Programme had clear recommendations for restructurization of existing practices.

Most of the projects in the area of innovations were submitted by consultancy organizations and very rarely by enterprises. It is clear indication that existing innovation policy still is unsatisfactory for business sector. In Fig. 1 is presented distribution of proposals to the INNO programme by proposer type. More that 1/3 of overall submissions were from Kaunas region. In projects EIM-CEE, INNOBA-SME ir STRINNOP related with innovation policy issues successfully participated Kaunas Technology University, Kaunas municipality and Kaunas Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Crafts. First results of these ongoing projects can be expected only at the end of 2003.

According to the intentions of the EC in 6FP will be given special attention to the projects submitted by business and industry associations. Lithuanian INFOBALT association and Association of Light Industry participated in the first experimental call for such projects, unfortunately unsuccessful. We hope that gained experience in preparation of such projects will be useful for Lithuanian business associations to become more competitive during 6FP.

Separate area of projects related with innovations was devoted to the involvement of SMEs into the activities of 5FP. Among 52 projects covering different industry sectors 7 was implemented also with participation of Lithuania: TRANSTRACC, BALTDYN, SeSME, BEN-TEX, TIME, INWOOD and ETISPack.

It is significant that to the last cut of date for the CRAFT projects submission were prepared proposals with 20 SMEs and 14 R&D performers from Lithuania. Seven proposals were evaluated positively and were retained for negotiations. Unfortunately few projects with high evaluation marks due to the huge competitiveness and limited budget in this call did not received funding. Successful proposals were devoted to the ultrasound technology applications for the needs of cosmetic industry, application of lasers for environmental pollution monitoring, renewable energy sources development, cleaning oil pollutants form surface of water.

CRAFT projects submitted by SMEs "Ekspla", "Biocentras", "Biok", "Pakmarkas", "Kardiosignalas", "Eksergija", "Saules energija", KTU Ultrasound research institute, Institute of Physics, Institute of Lithuanian Scientific Society, will obtain 4.56 mln. Litas support from EC.