Commission acts to help researchers' biotech business skills
The European Commission is supporting an initiative which aims to help researchers and scientists hone the skills needed to turn a good biotechnology idea into a successful business proposition. The Commission has awarded 193,000 euro to the Eurobiobiz company to host a series of workshops designed to educate potential biotech entrepreneurs on business requirements. Designed to deal with the specific characteristics of the biotechnology sector, the workshops will look at issues such as business plans, the dynamics of start ups and securing capital. This will be the third round of this sort of workshop, following two previous successful rounds in previous years, with 25 of previous participants having gone on to establish their own companies. The funding for them comes under the Commission's 'Quality of life' programme, part of the Fifth Framework programme. Workshops will take place between February 2002 and May 2003 and will take place in the following cities (in chronological order): Cambridge, Heidelberg, Paris, Amsterdam, Milan, Strasbourg, Madrid, Stockholm, Dublin, Prague, Berlin, Paris, Warsaw, Hamburg and Vienna.