Meeting of the CPSBB Director Dr. Tsanko Gechev with the EU Commissioner for Research and Innovation Carlos Moedas, the Minister of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic Peter Plavčan, the Director-General of DG Research and Innovation Robert-Jan Smits, and the other Teaming Coordinators at the conference “Spreading Excellence and Crossing the Innovation Divide Conference” in Brussels on 23th of November 2016.

The international conference “Spreading Excellence and Crossing the Innovation Divide” (SECID2016, http://secid2016.eu/) was organised on 23rd of November 2016 in Brussels with the aim to provide a platform for stakeholders to have an in-depth discussion on the role of excellence in European research and innovation as well as opportunities presented through Horizon 2020 and ESIF for crossing the innovation gap between countries, regions, research institutions, universities, and enterprises. Special attention was paid to the 10 successful Teaming projects from the first call. The Teaming coordinators, including Dr. Gechev, met with each other and with the EU Commissioner for Research and Innovation Carlos Moedas with the Minister of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic Peter Plavčan, who was the organizer of the conference. Next to that, the Teaming coordinators met with Robert-Jan Smits, the Director-General of DG Research and Innovation at the European Commission, and with Peter Van Der Zandt, Head of Unit “Spreading Excellence, Widening Participation, Science with and for Society”, and discussed matters related to the implementation of the Teaming projects.