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On 7-8 March in Zeuthen/Berlin, the international project Baltic TRAM (Transnational Research in the Macroregion) held it’s kick-off, marking the start of a wide range of activities to be implemented throughout the Baltic Sea Region over the next three years. The meeting gathered 16 project partners, associated organisations and guests from the region and beyond.

The Baltic TRAM project, which aims at strengthening the relationship between analytical research institutions and the private sector, will run until the beginning of 2019. It will establish a number of national research centers to serve as interface between analytical research institutes and companies, and encourage companies through open calls to make use of the research institutes for testing their products and develop new innovations. The national research centers will be established on the basis of the existing structures at partner-universities and innovation agencies, and their core activities will be formulated on the basis of the findings of a benchmarking analysis on National roadmaps for research infrastructures and smart specialisation strategies in the Baltic Sea Region.

During the kick-off, the project partners were provided with insight into other European initiatives in the field of research and innovation. The ambition is to link the upcoming project activities to ongoing processes in order to secure synergies and ensuring efficient outreach to the relevant target groups. As follow up of these discussions the Baltic TRAM project will organise a conference on 8-9 June 2016 in Hamburg. This upcoming event will address the challenges faced by analytical research infrastructures in the Baltic Sea Region and Europe, and will present the state of the art in the field.