Closer Research & Innovation Collaboration between Europe and Canada

Memorandum of Understanding signed between Celtic-Plus and Prompt

On November 18^th 2014, Celtic-Plus, the EUREKA Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) cluster and industry-driven European research initiative, and Prompt, the Quebec-based industry-university research and development consortium, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen their collaboration in ICT related research & innovation projects.

The MoU was signed at the Celtic-Plus Proposers Day in Basel by the Chairman of Celtic-Plus, Jacques Magen, and, on behalf of Prompt President & CEO, Charles Despins, by Prompt’s Green ICT initiative coordinator, Jacques Mc Neill. With the support of common partners such as Ericsson and Thalès, Celtic-Plus (www.celticplus.eu) and Prompt are key players in stimulating collaborative privately-publicly funded ICT projects in Europe and Canada. They see the MoU as a basis for creating joint European-Canadian ICT projects.

The signatories, Jacques Magen and Jacques Mc Neill, agreed that this MoU provides compelling opportunities for both the Celtic-Plus, and the Prompt research and innovation communities to perform additional collaborative research in new common projects. Government officials from Canada, France and Sweden, as well as representatives from Ericsson and Thales, who are already involved in both Celtic-Plus and in Prompt, already announced their strong support to this cooperation, which is open to all EUREKA member countries. EUREKA is an intergovernmental organization for market-driven industrial R&D. It is a decentralised network facilitating the coordination of national funding on innovation aiming to boost the productivity & competitiveness of European industries. The network brings together over 40 pan-European economies, and also includes Israel, South Africa, South Korea, and Canada. (http://www.eurekanetwork.org/)

Jacques Magen and Jacques Mc Neill signing the MoU for collaboration in ICT RTD. From left: Andreas Aurelius (Swedish Government), Anders Caspar (Ericsson), Andreas Gut (EUREKA Chairmanship), Dominique-Paul Warnier (French Government), John R. McDougall (President, National Research Council Canada), Jacques Magen (Celtic-Plus) & Jacques Mc Neill (Prompt)

As part of the collaboration agreement signed between Celtic-Plus and Prompt, Quebec-based Civimetrix Telecom already confirmed a project agreement with a French company specialized in the field of video vigilance. Two other agreements are under preparation, notably in the Smart Connected Home area.

Civimetrix, in conjunction with other Québec partners, will also participate in a real estate development in 2015 to establish a major LivingLab project integrating its new very high-speed telecommunication technologies and its open access capabilities to these providers of new services in Europe and Canada.

From left to right: Jacques Mc Neill (Prompt), Marc Girard (President of Civimetrix Telecom) and Jacques Magen (Celtic-Plus)