Join the Innovation Debate at the Innovation Convention 2014

European Commission President José Manuel Barroso will host the second EU Innovation Convention in Brussels on March 10 and 11. Already established as Europe’s leading innovation event, the Convention will bring together a unique gathering of world-class visionaries and innovators, including CEOs from some of Europe's top companies, young innovators and net-entrepreneurs, such as the founders of Prezi and Storify. And, of course SusChem and Cefic will be represented.

The Innovation Convention will explore innovation in all its facets and cover a variety of themes. The convention's programme can be accessed here. More than 2000 visitors are expected to attend the event to hear a range of speakers including: the CEOs of Telefonica, Jaguar Landrover, Airbus, Bayer, Nokia, Safran Group and Sanofi Aventis, Nobel Prize winner Serge Haroche, Professor Athene Donald from Cambridge and Lord Patten of Oxford, amongst many others.

You can watch the promotional video for the event below.

Innovation messages
SusChem board member and Executive Director Research and Innovation at Cefic Gernot Klotz will be taking part in a fringe meeting as part of the Convention on the afternoon of 10 March. The session organised by the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2013 and Knowledge4Innovation (K4I) will look at 'Key Innovation Messages from 2013' and follow up the results of the Vilnius Innovation Forum and the Fifth European Innovation Summit.

A main outcome of the Fifth European Innovation Summit was “Five Calls for Action to wake up Europe and make innovation happen." The participants of the Vilnius Innovation Forum focused on “Innovation Drift” and agreed a declaration containing ten principles for shaping European innovation policy. The declaration emphasizes the importance for Member States to continue to increase investments in research and innovation. European countries must also continue to work to create a common and vibrant European Innovation Ecosystem. In addition investment, both public and private, in research and innovation fosters productivity and growth and is a key for job creation. The declaration was delivered to European Commission.

As well as Gernot Klotz speakers at the session will include Lambert van Nistelrooij, MEP, Chairman of the Knowledge4innovation Forum Governing Board.

The Convention has a very varied associated fringe programme - more details can be found here.

More information
To join the innovation debate you can register for free on the event website. And you can also follow the Innovation Convention on twitter and comment using the hashtag #EUIC2014.