Fostering entrepreneurship and innovation through bringing together academia, business and government has become a main challenge for strengthening the market orientation and competitiveness of economies in the ECA region. Business incubators, technology/science parks and technology transfer offices play a key role in the processes of commercialization of science and are crucial for development of national and regional innovation clusters. Since the beginning of 2000 their activities put emphasis on the need of new public policy to support the academia-industry-government relations.

Advancing Innovation in ECA 2009: Bridging Education, Research and Business Incubation for Fostering Academic Entrepreneurship and Innovation aims at sharing local and international experience about business incubation and innovation and will create an excellent platform for building networks within and outside national and sectoral borders among academic researchers, business managers and policy makers in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Conference themes will include:

• Incubating innovations - the triple helix of academia, business and politics
• National and regional policies for fostering business incubation and innovation development
• The future of incubation infrastructure
• R&D as a source for new businesses - the role of incubators and technology parks
• Investment readiness and investment policies on local, national, and international level
• Research based spin-offs as a tool for creation of economic wealth from public funded research
• Innovative start-up funding - how to nurture and incorporate new ideas
• Business support networks and innovation - counselling, coaching and training for start-ups
• ICT - between empowering incubation and technology/science parks infrastructure and building innovative start-ups
• Innovation and business clusters
• Green energy and energy efficiency: windows of opportunity for incubators
• Eco-Tourism: From start-up through innovation to regional planning
• Academic entrepreneurship in Eastern Europe and Central Asia
• (In)formal knowledge and technology transfer as a driving force of innovation

The Conference will bring together more than 80 international and local high-level policy makers and experts in business incubation and innovation promotion, business players, and academic and university scholars from more than 20 countries throughout Europe and Central Asia.

AIECA 2009 Confernence is organized by the Eastern European and Central Asian Business Incubators Network (ECAbit) supported by the infoDev program of the World Bank, Technical University - Gabrovo, Municipality of Gabrovo, Applied Research and Communications Fund, and Enterprise Europe Network - Bulgaria.

For further information, please visit the conference website at http://www.aieca2009.ecabit.org.

For an update on ECAbit's most recent activities, take a look at the attached ECAbit network newsletter!