Applied Research and Communications Fund (ARC Fund), Bulgaria
- Coordinator
The ARC
Fundis a private non-profit organisation founded in 1991 in Sofia.
Its mission is to promote technological and scientific cooperation between Bulgaria
and the EU, to contribute to a concerted development of the information society
in Southeast Europe, and to facilitate cross-border networking of non-governmental
organisations by utilising modern information and communication technologies.
ARC Fund
operates in two major areas: Information Society related issues and Technology
Transfer and Innovation.
ARC Fund has built up extensive knowledge about the European
RTD policies, programmes and funding schemes. It has well-established information,
training and counseling infrastructure (e.g. ARC Fund maintains its own Internet
information node for communication; publishes its own newsletter, leaflet and
brochures; organises specialised conferences and regular technical seminars
and meetings). ARC Fund maintains a broad network of relations with major RTD
players in Bulgaria, central government, and local administrations, and more
than 1,000 industrial enterprises.
ARC Fund has the necessary institutional and human capacity,
as well as the expertise required in technology development and innovation,
conducting regional and national studies, provision of innovation and technology
transfer related services, to ensure the successful implementation of ForeTech.
The organisation involves more than 40 professionals with backgrounds in mechanical
engineering, IT and computer science, telecommunications, economics and finance.
Currently ARC
Fund is running and participating in the following projects
and initiatives:
Innovation
Relay Centre – Bulgaria, since January 1997. The mission of IRC –
Bulgaria is to foster the technological development of the industrial small
businesses in the country through improving their technological level via appropriate
co-operations with the European industrial and technological communities where
each participant gains from the interchange. IRC – Bulgaria is the only
representative of the IRC Network in the country. It covers the whole territory
of Bulgaria through its main office in Sofia, two sub-nodes in Plovdiv (Southern
Bulgaria) and Bourgas (Black Sea region), and the institutional networks of
the consortium partners: Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Bulgarian
Industrial Association, and Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. During the years
the efforts have been focused upon filling in the lack of support mechanisms
for innovation and technology transfer in the country, which resulted in a continuous
improvement of the services, complementarity to the efforts of other existing
centres and networks, and networking with a large number of organisations in
the country and in Europe. A large-scale survey of the innovation potential
and the demand for new technologies was carried out in the second semester of
year 2000. The survey aimed to capture the readiness of the Bulgarian small
business community to get involved in technology transfer projects, the technology
needs and the R&D requirements of the industrial SMEs. The survey was carried
out by interviewers; a special questionnaire was developed for the purpose.
568 companies and independent RTOs were interviewed. The information gathered
during the survey was analysed in order to identify on one hand the barriers
before the innovation activity of companies, and on the other hand to find out
what new technologies were needed to improve their competitiveness.
In
the middle of 1997 ARC Fund got acquainted with the EU initiative for regional
innovation strategies. In the beginning of October 2001 ARC Fund launched the
project “Development of a Regional
Innovation Strategy for the South Central Region of Bulgaria”, which
aims to create a climate conducive to innovation and thus will facilitate and
intensify the activities of the IRC in the region. The major result of the project
will be the elaboration of a regional innovation strategy with the corresponding
action plan (concrete short-term, medium-term and long-term programmes) for
the South Central Region. The strategy will be the basis for a continuous and
sustainable RIS process, which will enhance the innovative capacity of the region
and will facilitate its integration in the Network of Innovating Regions in
Europe.
In
the first quarter of 2001 ARC Fund got involved in the Initiative for Technology
Cooperation with the Balkans. It is a Greek-American Initiative based on a Memorandum
of Understanding between the two countries, which was signed in 1998. The initiative
aims to promote the cooperation among Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and FYROM in
the field of technology development and innovation. ARC Fund was contracted
to perform technology audits of companies in the following sectors: information
and communication technologies, telecommunications, food processing, environment
and agriculture. The audits were carried out in April-May 2001. The aim of the
audits was to capture the technology needs of the companies in the five sectors
as well as their innovation potential in order to compare the sectoral trends
within the sectors in the four countries. The analysis of results serves as
a platform for devising future regional initiatives and launching pilot projects.
The role of ARC Fund in ForeTech is:
to
ensure the implementation of the contract and the work programme; to elaborate the
consortium agreement; to elaborate the
communication strategy of the ForeTech; together with CRIMM
Foundation, Romania to serve as a secretariat to the consortium; to coordinate the
consortium and to organise the meetings of the Steering Committee; to liaise with the
European Commission and to report on time on the project implementation; to provide the accountancy
and financial control of the project; to monitor the progress
of the project and develop internal quality assurance criteria; to ensure the implementation
of the foresight pilots in Bulgaria.
