2009 was pronounced by the European Commission and the European Parliament as the European Year of Creativity and Innovation. The Opole Science and Technology Park joined in the active support for the initiative in our region by launching the project called “The Round Table for Innovation in the Opolskie Voivodeship”. The main objective of the project is to stimulate innovative activities in the area of collaboration between industry and science in our Voivodeship. The project shows businesses ways and possibilities of limiting the economic slowdown and can prove successful through the application of innovative technological and organisational solutions that are the result of intensified cooperation between businesses, business support institutions, institutions of higher learning, research and development units and local government units. In practice, it consists in reaching businesses and persons that are active in implementing novel solutions, that are interested in their own development based on innovative solutions, that are eager to cooperate on the transfer of knowledge and experience and that have ideas that need to be elaborated. It involves joint work with experts on extending and consolidating knowledge on innovation and the “perfection” of ideas to make them practically applicable.

An invitation of representatives of the R&D and business support communities and their joint efforts at the “round table” may result, depending on the maturity of an idea, in the launch of numerous interesting undertakings.