Danish companies to be considered by EU funding programmes

In 2006, the European Commission initiated the formation of a series of co-European initiatives in the field of technology. One of the first is the ARTEMIS initiative.

ARTEMIS is an initiative whose purpose is to control European research and development within embedded systems, a technology which is gaining increasing importance in many significant business sectors.

The budget for the ARTEMIS initiative is expected to be around 3 billion Euros over the course of seven years, of which more than half will stem from industrial partners and the rest from the EU member states and associated nations, as well as from the Commission.

“As such, a prerequisite for participating in ARTEMIS is that the individual states themselves contribute financially. Therefore, we established D-Artemis as a syndicate, and in the spring of 2007 we applied to the Danish Ministry of Science Technology and Innovation for funds to create nationwide awareness of the ARTEMIS programme, so that we can match Danish companies with research institutions and thus be ready for the next step: establishing concrete projects capable of obtaining the necessary funding from the Ministry to be able to participate in ARTEMIS,” explains vice director of CISS, associate professor Arne Skou.

Aim: Two large applications

The actors behind the Danish D-Artemis project are the competency clusters DaNES and Pervasive Computing, along with CISS, the Alexandra Institute, the University of Southern Denmark, the Technical University of Denmark, the University of Aarhus and DI ITEK, who holds the status of project manager. In addition, seven companies are participating. ”D-Artemis has received just under 2 million for establishing the structure and the contacts that will hopefully lead to Denmark handing in two major applications for the ARTEMIS programme within the next 18 months,” Arne Skou explains and tells that the first information meeting for potentially interested companies has already been held.

The aim of the ARTEMIS initiative is to contribute to maintaining Europe’s position as the world’s leading area within the field of embedded systems. The European industry’s own investments within embedded systems are estimated to be around 15-20 billion Euros a year. Today, almost half of the 100 largest companies in Europe invest in research within embedded systems, and most of the 25 European companies spending most money on research are dependent on embedded systems for their products and services.

”The Danish government want more Danish companies to participate in EU-funded projects such as ARTEMIS, and therefore it is our hope in D-Artemis that we will be able to get the necessary financial patronage to assert ourselves in the ARTEMIS programs,” Arne Skou finishes.