Objectives: To review and discuss results from comparative research and experiences associated with innovation and competence building, drawing on reports in three key areas of socio-economic research and of business and government practice: i) Getting to the market: the firm perspective on management of knowledge and learning; ii) Networks and clusters for territorial competitiveness: the regional perspective; iii) The knowledge-based economy and the accelerating rate of technological change; The meeting is designed to promote a cross-disciplinary debate among US and European socio-economic researchers and decision makers. It will include invited keynote lectures, followed by short presentations, panel discussions and general dicussion. Context: The meeting is organized together with the annual IC2 Institute Fellows Meeting, which will be held for the first time outside the city of Austin, Texas. The meeting will be developed in a way that is intended to promote international cooperation, but also a better understanding of different realities and attitudes towards innovation and competence building. The IC2 Institute is a world-recognized leader in activities associated with technology-based wealth creation, as described in http://www.ic2.org. The Institute's annual Fellows meeting is an opportunity to discuss the US perspective on the two key issues that are the focus of the event: innovation and competence building. The meeting comes as a follow-up to the Research Seminar organized in Guincho, Lisbon, in May 2000, under the title "Towards a learning society: Innovation and competence building with social cohesion for Europe", as in http://in3.dem.ist.utl.pt/learning2000/, which was promoted with the European Commission and emphasized the need to promote benchmarking and comparative research for better understanding the learning society; In this context, this new meeting attempts to contribute to the new challenges issued during the Lisbon Council of the European Union regarding the need to benchmark science, technology and innovation policies, but follows leading work developed by OECD regarding a better understanding of the production, mediation and use of knowledge, with emphasis on the education sector (e.g. OECD, 2000); The meeting will be followed by the 5th International Conference on "Technology Policy and Innovation", to be held in Delft, The Netherlands, June 26-29, under the topic "Critical Infrastructures". Details are available in http://in3.dem.ist.utl.pt/delft2001/. Expected benefits: This meeting will establish communication and interaction between US and EU communities of top managers, scholars and policy makers, in strategic fields that relate to innovation and competence building. It will also aim at contributing for identifying key missing aspects in the socio-economic understanding of knowledge management in the learning society and thereby help to set an agenda for future socio-economic and innovation research.

Copyrigth (C) 2001 - IN+