EASN

EASN is the European Automotive Strategy Network, a pan-European Automotive Regions platform (among them, the Valencian Region), aimed at supporting the Automotive Industry in the EU by:

• Identifying opportunities for improving its competitiveness including the competitiveness of SMEs.
• Enabling co-operation and joint project activity amongst Companies, Clusters and Regions (e.g. particularly joint Research and Development projects, co-operation between Companies and Public Authorities).
• Making recommendations and influencing Policy development at Regional, National and EC/EU Level.
• Contributing to the development and design of suitable support instruments.
• Stimulating the use by SMEs of present and new instruments.

EASN was originally established to accomplish 5 EU funded projects: 1) Automotive Regions, 2) Network of European Automotive Competence, 3) Transnational Clustering in the Automotive Sector, 4) BeLCAR and 5) I-CAR-O). All these 5 projects came already to an end, although all the participating regions have been invited to take part in the EASN project, which focuses on 3 main themes:

• Innovation: bringing competitive advantages to the EU Automotive Industry by means of R&D.
• Skills: professional competencies likely to be required by the EU Automotive Industry in the next 5, 10, 15 and 20 years.
• Clusters: promoting the cooperation of competing European regions and clusters for the benefit of the EU Automotive Industry.

The EASN project is jointly funded by the participating regions and the European Fund for Regional Development through the Regional Initiative Projects section of the Interreg IVC program, with an estimated completion date of July 2011.

For further information, please visit the website of EASN