Identifying obstacles to collaboration between academia and SMEs
A new project is to examine 'Bridging Life Science Research and SMEs in the Baltic Sea Region - Putting Cluster Policies into Practice for the Benefit of SMEs' (Bridge-BSR). Together with various organisations and associations from the region, coordinator ScanBalt will aim to identify regional bottlenecks in the region that inhibit efficient collaboration between academic research and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Ultimately, Bridge-BSR is expected to create an investment structure promoting SME development and a shared SME support structure between regional clusters that will help to increase SME participation in EU programmes. These measures will in turn enhance innovation and the commercialisation of products, stakeholders believe. 'The Bridge-BSR will promote cohesion in the Baltic Sea Region between fast growing tiger economies in the Baltic Countries, Poland and Russia, the Nordic countries already among the most innovative in the world and a Germany going through a very positive development,' ScanBalt chairman Professor Hans-Robert Metelmann states. 'The Baltic Sea Region is on top of Europe but has ambitions for more. In the future, we will see stronger collaboration on common challenges for the populations in the region.' An example for such collaboration is cancer prevention, where policy, science and industry in the Baltic Sea Region are coordinating their efforts in order to increase life expectancy". Agreements between the regions on cross-border efforts to strengthen SME-based innovation are a significant step to turning ScanBalt BioRegion into a globally competitive hot spot attracting human, industrial and financial resources, adds ScanBalt general secretary Peter Frank. 'The development of shared services between clusters, the common benchmark system to be implemented, enhanced access to financing and integration of intellectual property management in various networks will strongly support this.' The EU-funded ScanBalt BioRegion network brings together 11 countries (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, Poland, northern Germany and north-west Russia), more than 60 universities and 870 companies from the fields of biotechnology and life science. Since its foundation in 2004, ScanBalt has tried to act as 'an incubator for projects and ideas that serve the development of the ScanBalt BioRegion' in order to ensure the competitiveness of North European life science and biotechnology.