4. May. 2005

The conference marks the final event of the RECORD project funded under the STRATA programme under FP5. The RECORD network set out to establish a knowledge rich environment between established EU Member States and Accession States in the area of benchmarking methodology.

Over the past two years, experts from 10 institutions from 9 countries, of which 6 were Accession States, have held joint workshops to diffuse the methodology of benchmarking, review the Accession states centres of excellence and crucially, to determine the competitive characteristics of the Centres of Excellence that have been identified.

This conference, which is also supported by the Austrian Ministry for Education, Science and Culture, will explain the benchmarking process and offer a prototype mapping of excellence in the Accession States. Furthermore, it provides a platform to discuss and exchange policy options that arose out of the work. There are ample opportunities for interaction with the project team and other policy makers.

For more information please contact Ms. Maria Schwarz-Wölzl at the Centre for Social Innovation, Austria: schwarz@zsi.at