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Alpes-Maritimes - A region of excellence for innovative start-ups
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The Alpes-Maritimes region registered a population of 1.030 million in 1997. The largest city in the region is Nice with a population of 340,000. The last recorded level of Gross Domestic Project as a ratio of the total population was 18,188 Euro (in 1996).
Alpes-Maritimes is the administrative French department, also known as French Riviera, very well known for its quality of life, but more and more known for its flourishing high tech business activities. It is part of the Provence Alpes - Côte dAzur, 3rd French region by its size and many other quantitative indicators, particularly in creating new companies.
Alpes-Maritimes has achieved phenomenal and widely recognized success in creating the Sophia-Antipolis science park. Created 30 years ago, the largest European science park is perceived by its European neighbours as the "Silicon Valley of Europe" with a strong international flavour. Indeed, this technology Park is represented by over 50 countries and 70 different languages are spoken in the Park. This science park offers knowledge-based incubation projects with genuine high tech characters, including poles of competence in the areas of Information and Communication Technologies evolving towards m-commerce, multi-media, sciences of the environment, health, teaching and Research. |
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R&D Institutes, scientific parks and incubator facilities
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Working in 137 public centres, 2,700 researchers work on the Côte dAzur. Research carried out at public institutions in the Alpes-Maritimes involves at least 10 different centres bearing the most well-known names in the research world, including CNET (France Telecom Research Centre on high speed networks, 82 employees), CNRS (French Scientific Research Organisation, more than 500 employees) and INRIA (more than 400 people in Sophia Antipolis, more than one third on IST). They specialise in fields such as life sciences, the environment, social sciences and indeed in the information and communication technologies. The Sophia Antipolis science park, the largest in Europe, was created in 1969. Now it represents 1,200 enterprises and more than 22,000 jobs. About half of this growth comes from the ISTs. Even in these times of strong economic crisis, Sophia Antipolis continues to attract both French and foreign investors and goes on creating jobs : the employment net balance is still positive ( more 1,326 jobs created from July 2001 to January 2003. Source : http://www.sophia-antipolis.net ).
C.I.COM. Organisation, (co-ordinator of the "HIGHEST" thematic network) is the "Business and Innovation Centre" (BIC) of SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS and therefore a full member of EBN (European Business and Innovation Centres Network). CICOM not only detects and selects potential new business in ICT but helps them to get started and to expand their business at the national and international level with a significant growth rate. For a better efficiency CICOM has set up relationships and partnerships with active entities like Chamber of Commerce, CERAM SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS, Telecom Valley, Côte d'Azur Development, Méditerranée Technologies, Fondation Sophia Antipolis, Ernst and Young, Entrepreneurs...
The Cadrenet job server created in 1996 by CICOM is one of the first Internet job servers. It granted the EC award of the best job servers, in Paris. In average, a job position posted in Cadrenet is fulfilled in average within 2 weeks, attracting skills from all over the world.
The Sophia Antipolis Foundation chaired by the senator Pierre Laffitte, founder of the scientific park, received from the authorities the responsibility of the scientific and cultural animation of the park. It is an extremely important mission because it has been recognised since the creation of the park that its not enough to put together universities, schools, research centres, and companies, if one does not add a mandatory ingredient: the cross fertilisation.
Scientific animation and cross fertilisation in general take all sorts of forms: breakfasts on subjects of current events, colloquiums, links with other companies and scientific parks are organised in a daily base for years most of them by the Sophia Antipolis Foundation. |
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Entrepreneurship education and training measures
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IActivities in public research and higher education at Sophia Antipolis Science Park and in the Alpes Maritimes Department area are centred on 10 main organisations. The department of Labour, Employment and Professional Training provides personalised aid in recruitment, subsidies, "right person" profiles, administrative procedures. University students are able to do apprenticeships for periods of 1 to 6 months or work part time for an enterprise at a very reasonable cost to the company. At the CERAM Sophia Antipolis (Graduate School of Management and Technologies), on almost 300 students, 30% of graduates are hired by the company where they performed their apprenticeship programme. In order to develop the entrepreneurial Spirit, CERAM has created an High-Tech Entrepreneursphip Chair. Its essential element is the "Innovation Start-up Program" which objective is to train students to create or to join innovative and promising start-up. Several other public and private schools such as Edhec, IAE, IPAG etc offer very specific business management programs. As an example, at CNRS initiative, 50 to 60 students graduate every year (Bac + 5) in industrial projects engineering and in financial projects.
Alpes Maritimes benefits from first-class international liaisons for both communication and telecommunications as well as a dense concentration of research and training institutes amongst the most advanced in France. The Region is home to hundreds of Research centres in the most sophisticated areas of expertise: information technology, telecommunications, healthcare and life sciences, the space industry and multimedia.
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Service networks: telecommunications & transport
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The French Riviera is endowed with telecommunications infrastructures that are particularly high-powered. The density of its telephone network is the highest in France besides Paris. High-speed transmission networks, satellite platforms, latest innovations and major players are all on-site. A specific network links the research centres providing them with high speed (2 Mbps to 4 Mbps) Internet communications. Since 1997, the Eurosud 155 project has installed a pilot network providing ATM services at 155 Mbits/s. The excellence of the quality of the air, rail and road networks plays a highly significant role in the economic development of the French Riviera. Nice Côte dAzur airport, a meeting point for 3 regions (Liguria, Piemont and Provence Alpes - Côte dAzur) provides direct flights to 88 destinations throughout 26 countries. With about 1,200 flights a week, its the 2nd French airport, after Paris. |
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Public support in research and development
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The economic development strategy is organised across the six scientific parks of the area, located near major cities: Avignon, Marseille, Toulon and Nice. Since 2002, the Sophia Antipolis science park is managed by the Community of Agglomeration of Sophia Antipolis (CASA) which gathers fourteen municipalities around a Charter of development. The council of the community is made up of 50 members. CASA is responsible for the planning, the development, the commercial mission and the management of the Sophia Antipolis science park.
Regional authorities, with some national funds, have also delegated to Méditerranée-Technologies all regional economic matters dealing with science and technology support. Consequently, in the Sophia Antipolis science park, Méditerranée-Technologies offers operational support to local companies, helping the development of start-ups, answering questions about technological transfer, and encouraging the local companies to participate in European projects. The Sophia Antipolis office of Méditerranée-Technologies also contributes to a more effective communication on the regional technological potential and to a better interface between the Sophia Antipolis science park and the regional environment. It also acts as a partner to implement inter-regional and international networks such as the E.U. Innovation relay centres network. |
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Local associations and clubs (examples)
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The Telecom Valley, a non-profit, business-driven association, (80 members, 12 000 people) encourages the development of ICT, with an international dimension, by building upon members expertise, between Start-ups, small Businesses, International Corporations, research and higher education centres, standardization bodies and regional authorities. For example Telecom Valley has created the "Innovation Prize", to reward an innovative project in the fields of networking, telecommunications and associated services or uses. Any company, association or individual from the whole Alpes Maritimes department may apply by submitting a proposal.
Sophia Start-up, club High-Tech, association Persan.
A new network has also recently been implemented in Sophia Antipolis: Initiative Riviera Technologies (IRT). It is a project launched by an initiative from hi-tech companies and backed by the French Riviera Chamber of Commerce. It aims to develop the region's hi-tech companies and attract new ones in synergy with economic players in the Provence Alpes -Côte d'Azur region. |
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Simplification for business start-up
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There are many schemes at regional level for SMEs. Many organisations provide information and guidance, among them, ANVAR (Regional Agency for Research Valorisation) and DRIRE (Regional Direction for Industry, Research and Environment). They offer several local and regional simplification measures, frequently combined with funding provisions in the local financing section. Many partnerships have been arranged with international consulting groups to propose thematic meetings to SMEs.
On the Alpes Maritimes department, 90% of enterprises have less than 10 employees. Entrepreneurs can get up to 7,500 Euro loans from a network of local initiatives platforms, which is the amount of capital needed to register a new company in France. At BIC CICOM Organisation premises, since 1996, companies are invited about once a month to breakfast meetings. The themes, which are selected by the companies, are presented and analysed by world class consultants such as Ernst & Young consultants.
The Foundation of Sophia Antipolis is also playing a major role, particularly with the Sophia Start-up association, which organises monthly meetings with the help of sponsors. The aim of these meetings is to assist fast growth companies to get started, to develop, in obtaining finance. These meetings help also to instigate contacts between venture capitalists, business angels, and start-ups. The CERAM Business School has also created its own business start-up support organism, Ceram Entrepreneurs & Innovation (CEI). This centre gathers the High-tech entrepreneurial division and Areas of Technical Expertise division. Its team is composed with12 people in charge of teaching, lecturing, supervising the research institute, and the start-up observatory, assisting project owners, carrying out prospection and providing help to innovative companies. |
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Venture capital Investment
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There are many financing schemes at regional level for SMEs. One of the programmes Lets develop is designed for regional companies proposing a strategic development plan over three years which encourages international development and turnover growth. In order to assist the creation of new companies a number of funding mechanisms are proposed by several private groups i.e. Groupe MALAKOFF (Partner of CICOM Organisation) who has special offerings for start-ups; it proposes a combination of subsidies (for training, space rental, marketing expenses) and public loans at very reasonable rates. Among the most active Capital companies helping start-ups in the French Riviera, MGT (France), VCR (UK), Net Partners (Italy) and Dassault Development (France) are the most active. |
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Business Angels initiatives
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Several business angels initiatives exist at the national and local level, including the Defi start-up, an association initiative, which offers a partnership to entrepreneurs, based on a national network of science parks, Chambers of Commerce and Industry. There is also the International Venture Capital Summit which takes place every year in Sophia-Antipolis, first week of December since 1997, and allows the investors, business angels and start-up meetings. The summit is organised with private and institutional partners: Chamber of Commerce, General and Regional Councils. Finally there is the Entreprendre en France, Alpes-Maritimes, a local network assisting the introduction of realistic projects is a pool of skills and services providing guarantees for bank loans, free advice from lawyers and accountants. |
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