The European Commission has approved requests from Member States and the UK to temporarily waive customs duties and VAT on the import of medical devices, and protective equipment, from third countries in order to help in the fight against coronavirus. This will make it easier financially to get the medical equipment that doctors, nurses and patients desperately need. The Commission has swiftly approved requests received from all Member States. This measure includes masks and protective equipment, as well as testing kits, ventilators and other medical equipment.

The EUREKA network, a leading facilitator of innovation, promotes and supports market-oriented international R&D&I project generation. EUREKA projects have a ‘bottom-up’ nature meaning that the project consortium defines the technology to be developed and how the project comes together as a whole. The consortium also agrees upon the intellectual property rights and how the partnership is built; it agrees on the sharing of expertise. The consortium can take many forms, composed of small, medium or large companies; universities or research centres.