MANUNET is a joint effort between 20 contractor partners representing 16 European regions and region-sized countries, plus 7 extra associated partners, based on a shared view for Europe: a.- Manufacturing is and must continue to be one of the fundamentals of the Economy of Knowledge. It is estimated that in total 75% of the EU GDP and 70% of employment in Europe is related to manufacturing (6-12-2004. Manufuture, a vision for 2020). b.- Fortunately, Europe is in a privileged position in some of the key manufacturing sectors, those with high technology demands, (listed in B2.1) and therefore, the sustainability of European manufacturing is the success in R&D for manufacturing. c.- Manufacturing activities tend to concentrate in regional poles, speeding up the value added chains, products, services and knowledge trading. Therefore Regions are naturally suited to respond to these sector needs. d.- A number of these Regions devote R&D programmes to respond to short-to-medium term industrial needs, complementing the longer term focus of national and European programmes. e.- These R&D activities are the most fragmented layer of European research, with little coordination from Agencies, and therefore, there is a large opportunity to contribute to ERA. f.- Manufacturing research must also be understood from the perspective of European Zones that are highly increasing their capacities due to delocalisation from the West.