The EIB-University Action Programme hosted its third annual meeting, on December 10, 2009 at the EIB-headquarters in Luxembourg. The meeting was very well attended, with participants from Oxford Brookes University (UK), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (ES), Università di Bologna (IT), Università Ca'Foscari di Venezia (IT), EURANDOM (NL), Università degli Studi di Milano (IT), Tilburg University (NL), Technische Universität München (DE), University of Sterling (UK), Imperial College (UK), University College London (UK), and Adam Mickiewicz University (PL).
During the morning session participants had an overview of the various activities that the programme is sponsoring. Since it started its activities in late 2006 under EIBURS, the Bank has launched 11 lines of research, and signed 8 research agreements on various topics. The first 4 EIBURS were completed in September/October 2009 and at the meeting the research coordinators presented the main results of their research. During the same period, the Bank financed 13 young researchers under STAREBEI, of which 4 are currently under implementation. For the first time this year the EIB also hosted participants from three networks (UNIMED, FEMISE, and C.R.E.D.I.T.) and representatives from the European Regional Science Association (ERSA).
In the afternoon the EIB-University Action hosted two parallel seminars on topics with research supported by the programme: (i) Infrastructure funds, (Presentation by Eva Kaspers and Florian Bitsch, Researchers at the Technische Universität München); and (ii) Growth, Innovations and Investments: the Economic Impact of mobile telecoms (presentation by Pantelis Koutroumpis, Researcher, Imperial College, Business School).