The creation of an award for EU female entrepreneur of the year is a key recommendation in a joint Irish/British position paper, which sets out measures to help Europe become the world's most dynamic knowledge-based economy.

The submission will be presented to current EU President Mr Goran Persson at tomorrow's Stockholm summit.

Promoting entrepreneurship among women is an important way to increase female employment, but more needs to be done to create better conditions and opportunities for women to start and run a business and to balance work and life, the submission says.

It said the award would draw attention to initiatives under way.

The common letter calls for the creation of a business-led taskforce to identify the current and future skill needs of the knowledge economy.

Funding should be better targeted at areas vital to Europe's global competitiveness, the letter says.

It should focus on research which is beyond the means of individual member-states and on key fields of research over the next decade, such as biotechnology, information and communications technologies (ICT) and the development of sustainable technologies including, in particular, climate change abatement technologies.

Administrative procedures should also be simplified to encourage the active participation of top researchers and SMEs.