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KREO Study Visit – Grenoble, 11th and 12th December 2003
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This study visit, that took place in Grenoble on the 11th and 12th December 2003, was organised in order to favour the process of exchange and transfer of successful practices supporting the creation of innovative firms from Grenoble-Lyon to Emilia-Romagna.
Following the KREO methodological approach, a basic element was represented by the involvement of each region’s local network, that is the key players running the local initiatives in support of the creation and development of new innovative companies. Their direct participation to the project activities allows on one hand to extract the tacit knowledge they possess and on the other to transfer it more effectively to those operators that, in the partner regions, could uptake it and promote the implementation of similar initiatives.
Beside a general presentation of the Grenoble-Lyon context, given by the City of Grenoble, the visit was focused on three specific initiatives :
- the incubator GRAIN, presented by its director, Mr Gilles Talbotier
- Minatec Ideas's Laboratory, one of Grenoble technological platforms, focused particularly on micro-electronic devices, presented by its responsible, Mr Michel Ida
- Rhône-Alpes Génopole, another technological platform created in Grenoble on biotechnologies and genomics, presented by the responsible of economic development, Mr Daniel Christiaen. This presentation was completed by the visit to the proteomics laboratory, lead by Mr Jérôme Garin.
The Emilia-Romagna delegation was composed by 6 people: ASTER’s staff, the Development Agency SIPRO, the Italian Research Centre ENEA and the University of Ferrara.
All members of the Emilia-Romagna delegation were very satisfied by the very interesting programme and were impressed by the dynamism and creativity of the Grenoble area. Very fruitful discussions followed each presentation and went on also during lunch and dinner time. This allowed comparison between the initiatives developed in the two partner regions and provided many hints for deepening the learning process. In particular, the services provided by GRAIN to its start ups and the very innovative business models of the visited technological platforms were used as a basis for establishing the future cooperation programme. |
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KREO Study Visit – Bologna, 24th and 25th March 2004
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In the framework of the exchange programme between the partners regions of the KREO network and particularly Emilia-Romagna and Grenoble-Lyon, a study visit was organised in Bologna on the 24th and 25th March 2004.
This event was conceived in order to give continuity to the exchange started within the study visit in Grenoble on December 2003, on which a convergence of interest of the KREO partners and the respective local actors was verified.
Business incubators and biotechnology/genomics were the topics of the visit, that involved three operators from the Grenoble-Lyon area, namely Ms Myriam Noblecourt of the City of Grenoble, Mr Gilles Talbotier of GRAIN and Mr Daniel Christiaen of Rhône-Alpes Génopole, and about 30 operators from the Emilia-Romagna region, including ASTER’s staff, managers of Emilia-Romagna incubators, operators from Fondazione Alma Mater, the development agencies SIPRO and SOPRIP, the Italian Research Centre ENEA, a representative of the Emilia-Romagna Regional Government, Professors and researchers on biotech and genomics coming from the universities of Emilia-Romagna and the National Research Council - CNR, as well as spin offs representatives).
The 24th March was devoted to two examples of incubators based in Emilia-Romagna. In the morning the delegation went to Ferrara, where it was received by the President of SIPRO (the local development agency managing a network of three incubators) and the President of the Ferrara Province that offered a visit to the beautiful Entense castle. Then everybody moved to the incubator of Copparo, where the Director of SIPRO, Ms Caterina Brancaleoni, presented the SIPRO network of incubators. A round table followed with the participation of local actors and some incubated companies. Afterwards the delegation had the opportunity to visit the incubator.
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| Buffet at the SIPRO incubator of Ferrara |
Mr Gilles Talbotier of GRAIN |
In the afternoon the delegation moved to Bologna and met Mr Fabrizio Bugamelli the Director of AlmaCube, the incubator of the University of Bologna.
The second day was devoted to genomics and biotechnology. In the Emilia-Romagna region, although this sector is very lively and several spin-off companies were created, there is no such a technological platform as the Rhône-Alpes Génopole. As a matter of fact, the research activities are carried out in a quite dispersed way in the five university poles existing in the region and in the CNR, lacking the potential that an integrated approach could bring also for what concern the support to new innovative companies. A scouting activity on the key actors of this sector was carried out by ASTER following the study visit of Grenoble and all identified actors, that were supplied with information and documentation on the Rhône-Alpes Génopole, found its model extremely interesting. The workshop that took place on the 25th March gave them the occasion to learn more of this model from Mr Daniel Christiaen and to present him the activities that they are developing. The workshop resulted as very satisfactory, as, thanks to KREO, the Emilia-Romagna key actors decided to create a joint network laboratory devoted to industrial research and the exploitation of research results, to set up a specific project and to submit it for funding to the Regional Government. The project drew ideas from the model presented by Mr Christiaen and further collaboration between the two centres will be explored once the Emilia-Romagna centre is set in operation.
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One moment of the workshop on
biotechnologies and genomics in the prestigious
Sala del Consiglio of the University of Bologna
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KREO partners in the Piazza
Santo Stefano before dinner | |
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KREO Study Visit – Grenoble, 22nd- 23rd April 2004
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A study visit was organised by the City of Grenoble in April on the following themes: seed-funds, technology transfer and nano-biotechnology.
This two-days visit enabled actors from Karlsruhe in Germany, Emilia-Romagna in Italy and Oxford in UK to discover the peculiarities of Rhône-Alpes innovative tools in the field of support to the creation of innovative start-ups.
Seed-funds
The CEO and the Investment Manager of Amorçage Rhône-Alpes, a regional seed-fund investing 6 Million Euros in nanotechnologies, biotechnology and NTIC, presented their structure and its functioning, by insisting on the methodology used to select projects, as well as the modalities of their contribution to these projects.
The CEO of Emertec presented the mission, objectives, activities, and results of this national seed fund currently of 80 million Euros located in Grenoble and dedicated to advanced technologies in microelectronics, advanced materials, instrumentation, electronics and nanotechnologies. Created in 2000, Emertec has studied 420 projects, and has made 16 investments to date.
Technology transfer
The Director of Floralis, the quite new subsidiary created by the Joseph Fourier University of Grenoble to manage "valorisation", technology transfer and spin-off mechanisms, presented this scientific university, well known in physics, mathematics and biosciences, which counts nearly 20 000 students, and the role of Floralis inside the university.
The manager of industrial relations of the National institute for research in computer science and control, INRIA, presented the company creation support policy of INRIA Rhône-Alpes. He underlined famous spin-off successes born from the institute, giving so concrete examples of its wide scope of activities e.g. Kelkoo: European number one in price comparison on the web.
Minatec Entreprises, entity of Minatec – the future European pole for micro and nanotechnologies – dedicated to valorisation, high-technology research and technology transfer, was presented by the Assistant Manager of the CEA, the Director of strategic partnerships and the Director of strategic orientations of Minatec. They explained the future functioning of the Minatec pole, and the place of technology transfer inside this set-up.
Biotechnology
Biotechnology was tackled through two presentations :
- the first one dealt with the European network Nano2life, which is the first European network of excellence in nano-biotech supported by the European Commission. Its 23 founding partners and 31 associate members aim at working together through joint projects in order to improve European scientific excellence in this new scientific field.
- the second presentation concerned Nanobio, a complete innovation centre for nanobiotechs, and its innovative structure. Platform gathering actors from the CEA, the University and the Hospital, Nanobio enables to foster the economic development in micro and nanotechnologies for life sciences by facilitating joint work programmes and technology transfer
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Exchanging ingredients for one’s own regional innovation recipe
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Excellence of the KREO regional systems can be likened to a haute cuisine recipe; the best ingredients and an accurate combination are essential to achieve the final result.
egions of Excellence in supporting the creation and development of innovative firms can be regarded as haute cuisine recipes, as they represent a unique combination of different ingredients (innovation practices) that create the distinctive flavour of regional performance.
KREO partners have identified direct cooperation among local key actors as the most effective approach for facilitating the transfer of the practices’ specific knowledge. The involvement of regional key players is enhanced through the creation of local networks built around some selected investigation fields. Inter-regional networking is developed through the organisation of study visits. They allow for the transfer of knowledge and highlight distinctive elements of single practices and of the system as a whole.
Study visits
From January to July 2004, three study visits were organised: to Emilia-Romagna, Grenoble-Lyon and Oxfordshire; a further one being scheduled in Karlsruhe in November.
The study visit to Emilia-Romagna was a follow-up of a previous meeting with the Grenoble-Lyon area and focused on business incubators and building research-industry relations in the biotech and genomics fields. Further to fostering collaboration between key actors on existing initiatives, this visit contributed to the birth of a new one: a laboratory project in the field of genomics and biotechnology in Emilia-Romagna. This project unites research competencies, start-ups and large companies of the region, following the Genopole Rhône-Alpes model.
In the Grenoble-Lyon area, the exchange was centred on funding for innovative companies, technology transfer offices and research-industry platforms. Among the latter ones, the ongoing wide-scale Minatec project was particularly interesting for the partners, who are closely monitoring the initiative’s progress in view of assessing its transfer potential. The idea of analysing and benchmarking spin out regulations in the different regions also stemmed from this visit.
The Oxford tour, organised in parallel with VentureFest - a major international event bringing together investors, entrepreneurs and professional advisors - included a visit to a platform on diagnostics, a university technology transfer centre and the organisation of two training sessions on setting up and managing Innovation Centres and Business Angel Networks (BANs). BANs will be modelled within KREO, analysing the differences in functioning and outcomes of the BANs in partner regions which result from their varying stages of development.
A further result of the KREO action, representing a new ingredient of the Emilia-Romagna innovation recipe is a forthcoming event, scheduled for 25-26 October 2004 in Bologna, which was inspired by the VentureFest in Oxford and the Forum 4i in Grenoble, two major European investment fora.
For more information, please contact :
Verdiana Bandini
Tel : +39 051 6398099
E-mail : kreo@aster.it |
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