The first official conference held to disseminate the initial results of Project OMEN took place on January 26-27 2006 in the Sala Tevere of the Regione Lazio headquarters. The conference, which was held to disseminate the initial results of Project OMEN reached after six months of activity, was organized within the "Exaudio - Listen to Achieve" meeting organized by the EU representation in Italy and the Regione Lazio in collaboration with Filas.
The two-day meeting involved over 100 participants in a rich series of presentations and debates among officers from the Directorate Generals (DG) of the European Commission and regional political authorities, economic development, research and innovation specialists and entrepreneurs from various European regions, including many New Accession Countries (NAS).
The opening panel, chaired by Pier Virgilio Dastoli, Head of the EU Representation in Italy, was centred on "Communicating Europe" and featured speeches by Raffaele Ranucci , Regione Lazio Councillor for Economic Development, Research, Innovation and Tourism, Michel Pasca-Raymondo , DG Deputy Director for Regional Policy of the European Commission, who also presented the JEREMIE initiative, and Brigitta Bodin of the EU Representation in Italy. Stefano Turi , General Manager of Filas, who outlined all the activities that Filas carries out to catalyse innovation in the Regione Lazio, closed the morning panel.
The afternoon session was opened by Donato Chiarini , Head of Delegation, DG Enlargement, European Commission, who introduced "Significant Experience of New Member States" and featured presentations by Karel Klusacek , Director of the Director, Technology Centre of the Academy of Sciences of Prague (Czech Republic); Ireneusz Drzewiecki , Vice President of the MARR Regional Development Agency (Poland); Ildiko Polgarne , CEO of the Hungarian Centre for Innovation; and Alexandros Michaelides , Head of Talos (Cyprus). The Technology Centre of the Academy of Sciences of Prague and Talos are OMEN project partners.
The second day of Exaudio opened with a workgroup focused on " Listening to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) ". The panel moderated by Maive Rute, Director for the Promotion of SME Competitiveness, DG Industry and Enterprise of the European Commission, featured an interesting presentation by Paolo Bonaretti , Director of ASTER, on the system employed to promote innovation amongst SMEs in Emilia Romagna. The next model was presented by ISW, the Institute for Structural Policy and Economic Development of Halle (Germany). The morning session was closed by the presentation of Carmen Baena , Director of the Department for Innovation and Technology of the Istituto Andaluz de Tecnologia (another OMEN partner along with ISW) who explained the system that is implemented in Andalusia in Spain.

Project OMEN
The first official conference held to disseminate the initial results of Project OMEN were held during the last panel of the Exaudio Meeting dedicated to "Measuring and Communicating Innovation Policy". The Panel was chaired by Ms. Michilli Head of the Filas EU Initiatives and Projects Unit and coordinator - among others - of the OMEN Project.
The opening presentation, which introduced the Pilot Action on "Evaluating the Impact of Regional Policies and Benchmarking" financed by the European Commission, was held by Agnieszka Turynska , Officer of Innovation Programmes, DG Industry and Enterprise of the European Commission.
The objective of the pilot action, which includes OMEN, is to encourage European regions to promote the use of existing methodologies and tools to develop new methods to evaluate the impact of regional innovation policies and strategies, and create methodologies and instruments for benchmarking innovation performance in European regions.
The afternoon was then dedicated to the presentation of various project financed by the European Commission to develop the pilot actions. The first presentation, held by Lucio Paderi, a member of the OMEN Project Board, and European Commission Officer for the Regione Lazio, concentrated on OMEN. Subsequently, Adriana Agrimi of ARTI, coordinator of the IASMINE project, illustrated the scheduled activities planned by the pilot action and Gerhard Berger , of ICCR-international (Austria), also coordinator of the EURO-COOP project, illustrated the methodology used to plan the project. Augusto Ferriera, coordinator of IRE (Innovating Regions in Europe) presented a short review of the achievements reached to date and outlined the future objectives of regional innovation.
The panel was closed by an interesting presentation by Andrea De Panizza Senior Researcher at ISTAT and member of the OMEN Project Board, who explained how available data is analysed to extrapolate and formulate conclusions and indicators that are useful for the creation of new methods for the evaluation of innovation.
The Exaudio Meeting was closed by Pier Virgilio Dastoli, Director of the European Commission Representation in Italy, who called for a continued collaboration amongst the Representation, the Regione Lazio and Filas to help promote regional innovation in Lazio and all the other regions of Europe.

Exaudio Meeting Agenda