Long term cooperation with Iceland
On 27.09.2019 SPCleantech met in Reykjavik on Iceland with Ruth Bobrich from Icelandic Embassy in Berlin, Gudbjørg Oskarsdottir from Aluminum Cleantech Cluster, Thora Magnusdottir from EEA Grants office in Brussels, Hannes Ottosson from Iceland Innovation and Thorir Ibsen, Icelandic Ambassador responsible for EEA Grants and bilateral funds.
Janusz Kahl, CEO in SPCleantech ha salso talked about the cooperation proposal to Sturla Sigurjónsson, Permanent Secretary of State. He advised, that we should contact Pétur Þ. Óskarsson, Managing Director of Promote Iceland.
During the meeting and in previous mails South Poland Cleantech Cluster declared interest in entering into a longer lasting cooperation with the aim of building institutional cooperation and promoting the two countries clusters, companies and institutions representing cleantech and digital technologies preventing and mitigating global climate changes. Right now we have contact with Hannes from Icelandic Innovation Centre and Gudbjørg from Aluminum Cluster. We would like to find some contacts to clusters or some organisations representing cleantech industry and companies.
In our opinion such cooperation makes sense if it is planned for at least 3 years. For being able to do it we need some public economical support. As we heard there are some EEA Grants as well as bilateral funds supporting different intiatives between Iceland and other countries. It appears, that bilateral money are rather small and perhaps the biggest chance is in applying to EEA Grants. We have to find out how to do it with the help from the Icelandic Embassy in Berlin.
Our proposal for long term cooperation with Icelandic partners could involve:
- promotion of Icelands economic offer
- organization of foreign economic missions of entrepreneurs to and from both countries
- organization of conferences, fairs, congresses
- developing analyzes of involved markets
- establishing contacts between Icelandic and Polish partners
- trips to industry fairs in both countries
- promotion of innovation by strengthening cooperation on the science-business line
- support for the commercialization of innovative ideas and technological solutions in both countries
- organization of events promoting Iceland and Poland as a friendly countries for undertaking innovative initiatives
- organization of events in the field of intellectual and industrial property protection
- development of information systems on investment offers
- preparing studies containing key information for investors about Iceland and Poland
- creation of a business cooperation network among – business environment institutions, universities, local and government units and entrepreneurs
During our meeting in Reykjavik Gudbjørg suggested cooperation on design of new technologies for car batteries production that, as Thorir has explained could be supported by means from the bilateral funds (the initial visit of chosen partners from Poland) with a small amount of money. Gudbjørg and Hannes are going to have a meeting on this subject.