- BUILDING GLOBAL LEADERSHIP - FORUM ON FINLAND-US R&D&I COOPERATION 30 SEPTEMBER, 2014, HELSINKI, FINLAND (30/9/2014 08:30 - 15:45)

<p>DIGILE has taken an active role in scouting best international
R&amp;D&amp;I opportunities, initiatives and partners in the field of digital
services and applications. Now the aim is to investigate if cooperation with
American partners could bring added value to Finnish R&amp;D&amp;I activities.
The US is clearly one of the leading innovators in digital services and
applications, and one of the strongest leaders in the digital economy. Finland
also has its own strengths but Finland still has much to learn from the very
best. This process was in practise launched when DIGILE with the support of the
US Embassy and key stakeholders held a working group session in October 2013 at
the US Embassy’s Innovation Center to share views on how to deepen Finland-US
business innovation cooperation.</p><p>
Since then and based on those findings, DIGILE, National Science Foundation (NSF)
and their partners have been identifying concrete methods and instruments to
strengthen science, technology and innovation cooperation. One of the most
potential instruments to boost cooperation is NSF’s Industry &amp; University
Cooperative Research Program (I/UCRC) that creates innovative and active industry-academia
partnerships. Currently, I/UCRC has 68 centers, of which, 20 are focused on ICT
and computing science. I/UCRC centers are supported by NSF organisations Directorate
for Engineering, and Directorate for Computer and Information Science and
Engineering.</p><p>To open up new opportunities for industrial and university partners and
to create true win-win partnerships, DIGILE and NSF have for some time run a
process to establish a new I/UCRC site-center in Finland as the first one in
the Nordic countries. This process has led to the desired concrete result and
now, the purpose of the <b>Forum on
Finland-US R&amp;D&amp;I Cooperation</b> <b>on
30 September 2014 in Helsinki, Finland is to identify concrete business-oriented
research topics for the new Finland-based site-center.</b> <b>The Forum topics </b><b>cover areas that are in the focus in both
countries including digital technologies, big data, data centers, cyber
security and naturally funding schemes and opportunities for academia and
companies. </b></p><p>The Forum will be followed by a workshop and potential partner visits
that aim to share experiences and results of the ongoing projects as well as
jointly plan new activities with the invited experts from academia, industry
and the public sector.&nbsp;In that way the new site-center can fulfill
its mission in linking the best US resources with the best Finnish resources in
industrially-relevant joint research work. The programme is organised by DIGILE
in cooperation with NSF, Center for Visual and Decision Informatics, and participating universities and companies.</p><p></p><p><b>For
more information on the Forum, please contact:</b></p><p></p><p><i>Dr. Pauli Kuosmanen &nbsp;</i> &nbsp;<br><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.142857; background-color: initial;">CTO &nbsp; &nbsp;<br></span><a href="mailto:pauli.kuosmanen@digile.fi" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.142857;">pauli.kuosmanen@digile.fi</a><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.142857; background-color: initial;"> &nbsp;</span></p><p><i>Dr. Jani Kaarlejärvi</i><br>Director,
International Coordination<br><a href="mailto:jani.kaarlejarvi@digile.fi" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.142857;">jani.kaarlejarvi@digile.fi</a></p>