Dear fellow Members of EBN,

I take this opportunity to thank you, the members of our network, for the mandate and great honour you bestowed on me at our successful 2010 congress in the beautiful city of Burgos at the beginning of July. Congratulations to the sponsors and the Teams at CEEI Burgos and EBN for such an excellent job. I feel particularly privileged to be elected as your President in, this, our twenty fifth year as one of the biggest and most effective network of Business Support Organisations and Applied Innovation partners in the EU and beyond. Through a long term approach, dedication and client-centric values, so much has been achieved across the many Regions of the EU. The core business model of the BIC has stood the test of time and made its mark. Our processes of continuous self improvement and benchmarking of our services to innovative enterprise is adding real value in the market and among the stakeholders with whom we share the common agenda of turning creativity into commercial, competitive advantage, i.e. Applied Innovation.

We have now begun to face our second major economic recession only, this time, the global context demands of us to optimise our networked effect, to increase the intensity and focus and to continue to lead the development of the next generation of innovation enablers. Our support role to EU, National and Regional Authorities in delivering enterprise creation measures is also of critical importance and our collective experience and talent pool is a true, quality assured `fit-for-purpose` resource  that is already active and aligned with relevant policies and market needs.

As our companies grow and prosper and more of them do business across international borders it is indeed a joy to work in the service of this greater enterprise `family`. Your views on how we can do it to better effect are vital. Please continue to work through your national committees and Board representatives to ensure we are capturing our collective knowledge to provide better service levels to the community we serve.

I congratulate the new Board on their election and my thanks to the two Vice Presidents, Lennard Drogendijk and Alvaro Simon De Blas, for their dedication. We look forward to the many challenges ahead and pay tribute to you, the Members, for your continued active participation.

With my very best wishes,

Joe Greaney

EBN President