WHY MEDEA+

The central objective of the MEDEA+ programme is to stimulate "system innovation on silicon" and provide the technology platform that will allow Europe, through its microelectronics and system industry, to move faster into the Information Age. This will contribute to increased employment and the creation of wealth and economic prosperity in Europe.

The Microelectronics industry, through its dramatic increase in performance, is the enabler of technical and economic development in Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Soon whole products - like mobile telephones, computers or camcorders - will be based on a single silicon chip, reducing product cost, opening new markets and boosting business.
The strategic importance of this industry and its growing need for human and financial resources is visible in the huge and increasing governmental support, which this industry receives for example in the U.S., in Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

Europe is a patchwork of nations, cultures, languages... and will remain so.

Developing synergies in business through co-operation across traditional national boundaries is therefore much more difficult in Europe than in other regions of comparable size. Smaller companies suffer most from such constraints whilst larger companies are anyhow forced to globalise their business under the pressure of the markets.

The active participation of smaller partners in the MEDEA+ pre-competitive R&D co-operation framework helps them to overcome many obstacles. MEDEA+ opens them an access to the know-how, the international mindset and to best practices of larger multinational corporations.

New schemes of co-operation also have to be established between companies and laboratories as the capital spending necessary for new generations of semiconductor devices and design methodologies is more and more out of reach of the academic budgets.