The Berlin Forum is the ninth in this series of flagship events that the World Bank is organizing in partnership with the Fraunhofer Center for Central and Eastern Europe to support ECA countries in their transition to becoming increasingly knowledge-based.

• The first such Forum took place in 2002 in Paris and focused on the definition of national knowledge economy strategies, primarily in EU accession countries.
• The 2003 Helsinki Forum hosted discussions on issues related to the implementation of knowledge economy strategies and targeted both EU accession and EU candidate countries.  
• The 2004 Budapest Forum focused on the role of knowledge in enhancing countries’ competitiveness and included delegates from countries in the Balkans and Central Asia. 
• The 2005 Istanbul Forum engaged 25 client countries, as well as youth participants, in a dialogue on improving the business environment to stimulate private sector growth.
• The 2006 Prague Forum focused on innovation and technology absorption for economic growth, while the 2007 Cambridge Forum analyzed the “Cambridge Phenomenon” and discussed the role of government in supporting knowledge networks and technology acquisition.
• The seventh, 2008 Ancona Forum, addressed the evolution of industrial clusters and the contributions of academic and government in the development of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).
• The eighth, and most recent, 2009 Fontainebleau Forum addressed national strategies for restructuring Research and Development Institutes (RDIs) and Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) in the context of the global financial crisis and the continued need for the ECA client countries to maintain their knowledge-driven agenda.