ABSTRACT
The European Union has set it policy goals towards 2010 in the well-known Lisbon Agenda. It is an important document form several perspectives: It sets the ambition of Europe towards sustainable growth, competitiveness and high-quality jobs. The timeline was set to incorporate the enlargement process which is halfway done, increasing the social cohesion policy implications. The unit New Working Environments of DG Information Society has started a set of research communities, interacting in a multidisciplinary way. The communities consist of industrial and research actors, policy makers and those who are needed to cover the whole innovation process. New instruments like technology platforms are debated, as well as the balance between the long-term research versus the current collaborative research schemes.
