Coordinator: University Antwerp Management School (UAMS)

UAMS positions itself unequivocally as a university management school in close cooperation with the University of Antwerp. Its most important objective is to provide high-level, academic training programmes which are based on in-house research and which meet the manager’s growing need for lifelong learning.

Over the past decade UAMS has gathered extensive expertise in fields relevant to the proposal. First of all it has successfully conducted a number of innovation studies in established and start-up companies. Both traditional and high-tech sectors have been analyzed in several European countries. The output has been made public as Ph.D. dissertations and scientific publications, but also in more accessible forms like thematic information booklets or books. One of the books provides an in-depth discussion of value innovation activities in established companies in the Netherlands and as such provides a background against which innovation studies in young companies can be mirrored.

The management school has also participated in previous and related European Commission projects. Under the Euro4You and Gate2Growth projects it looked into barriers to innovation and strategies to overcome them in the fields of biopharmaceuticals, medical devices and nanomaterials. Through interviews with innovation actors in several EU countries UAMS managed to maintain its tradition and build upon scientifically sound methods to obtain practically relevant results. The knowledge gathered was used to support project partners in maintaining a web portal on innovation or running roundtable meetings with investors. Moreover experience in conducting focus group sessions, gained during previous studies, was further gathered and applied. Outputs of this project include a number of academic papers on the one hand and a comprehensive policy report on the other hand. Finally UAMS acted as the coordinator in its consortium of the Gate2Growth project. During four years UAMS developed a close collaboration with its partners and ensured that both the administrative and the content requirements were met. An independent audit held in 2004 confirmed the quality of the management systems in place and the reporting provided.

Prof. Dr. Koen Vandenbempt
St-Jacobsmarkt 9-13
2000 Antwerpen, Belgium
E-mail: koen.vandenbempt@ua.ac.be
Tel: +32 32755057
Mobile: +32 473261564

Andreas Kiederich
St-Jacobsmarkt 9-13
2000 Antwerpen, Belgium
E-mail: andreas.kiederich@ua.ac.be
Tel: +32 32204748