Agoria Flanders is the multi-sector federation of the technological industry in Flanders. Flanders is the northern state of the federal Kingdom of Belgium. A single Government and Parliament run it. The regional authorities are responsible for numerous key areas, a/o. the innovation, science and technology policy and the education and training.

Agoria’s structure reflects this federal structure of Belgium. Agoria Flanders represents members in dealing with the public authorities in Flanders. Agoria Flanders is active in areas such as innovation policy or lifelong learning, education and training policy. The actions it undertakes are designed to improve its members’ competitiveness.

Agoria Flanders represents 750 members throughout 9 sectors: metals & materials, metalproducts, plastics, mechanics & mechatronics, ICT, electrotechnics & electronics, car industry, aerospace and defence. Its sectors provide for 39% of the industrial employment in Flanders and 35% of total Flemish exports. Employment, exports and added value of Agoria Flanders in their turn represent roughly 75% of their total value in Belgium.

Agoria Flanders has a drive for innovation. It considers innovation, research and development as crucial factors for the present and future economic growth of the region and for the competitiveness of the companies. That is why, since 1995, Agoria Flanders draws up an annual "Innovation Policy Update" in which it expresses its views on government policy regarding innovation. The main message of this update is that government and business should spend an extra 62 millions of Euro on R&D (every year and cumulative) in order to catch up with the average level of the neighbouring countries.

A second tool is the "Innovation Implementation Plan", on the basis of which Agoria Flanders stimulates innovation within its own member companies. This plan covers a wide range of activities such as management training courses, a technology foresight study and the establishment of several clusters of companies and research institutions. Along this path, Agoria Flanders stands at the grassroots of clusters such as Flanders' DRIVE (car and vehicle assembly- and supply industry), Flanders' Mechatronics or a Flanders' New Materials Cluster (under construction).

One strand of the innovation implementation plan is the creation of public awareness for science and technology. Agoria Flanders fully endorses the Government of Flanders policy to create public support for- and increase the inflow in techn(olog)ical education and training. Agoria Flanders contributes to implement this policy 'in the field'. It joined forces with other federations and actors in a "Cooperation Platform". On these platform, Agoria Flanders' exchanges experience and best practices with the federations of the textiles industry (Febeltex Flanders) and the chemical industry (SIREV) and with the Technopolis, the science centre sponsored by the Government of Flanders.

Under the header "Engineering the Future", Agoria Flanders designs and implements its own activities. Its aims are to create a culture receptive for technology, to revaluate public esteem for the secondary and higher technical education, to increase the inflow in this type of education and, finally, to encourage students in technical education to eventually opt for a job in the technological industry.

This year, Agoria Flanders organised the "Ar Tech 2002" Competition. More than 700 pupils of the 2^nd and 3^rd degree of secondary education translated their vision on science and technology in 60 works of art (one per class). For these youngsters it is a real challenge and, subconsciously, they learn to combine art, creativity and technology. The award winning works of art are exhibited in Technopolis at Mechelen (www.technopolis.be). The closing ceremony of the competition was held at the famous modern arts museum S.M.A.K. in Gent.

Next year, another competition is organised for a different target group: the students in the 1^st degree of secondary education. The official curriculum prescribes a course named "technological education". Agoria Flanders offers the chance to teams of pupils, during this course and under the supervision of a teacher, to design and demonstrate a technological system that solves a self defined problem. The jury of the 2001-edition of this competition had a difficult job to indicate a winner amongst the 80 most wild and creative projects such as the "Smart wardrobe", "The babybox alarm", "The blue tin reward container".

Agoria Flanders furthermore organises and sponsors some more traditional activities such as guided company visits for student civil engineers. Another series of company visits is destined for intermediary persons like teachers or pedagogical advisors. Agoria Flanders recognises the need to approach people at ever more young ages. One of the actions in this philosophy is a company visit to the plant of Ford Werke AG in Genk for mothers of children in basic education!

Creating public awareness for science and technology, therefore, can be said to be a true concern of industry federations such as Agoria Flanders. We are well aware that good intentions and hard work are not enough. Our federation would welcome scientific indicators, enabling measurement and management of the effectiveness of our actions to create public awareness. It is prepared to exchanges best practices with other players in the field, at home and abroad.