Final Report Summary - POLYSACCHARIDES (The European Polysaccharide Network)
The main achievements of the project are:
- establishment of the legal instrument the European Polysaccharide Network Of Excellence Association (EPNOE) and a structure able to ensure a durable networking over the next 5-10 years;
- creation of an active network involving 16 institutions, more than 20 companies, 100 scientists, more than 70 PhD students;
- building of a research and education road map 2010 - 2020;
- top-level scientific research (more than 40 on-going common research projects, about 20 PhD shared by two partners, round-robin testing, tool box with a set of 200 instruments available within the network);
- education, with more than 50 exchanges of students, and creation of one EC-intensive on 'Sustainable utilisation of renewable resources' (2009-2011).
- active business and industry club with more than 20 members;
- every year, more than 270 research projects are starting between EPNOE members and companies;
- high level participants in many important stakeholder' organisations (like organisation of meetings with scientific societies).
EPNOE, which was created by this project, is a new, durable structure for organising research and education on polysaccharides at the European level, a complete, efficient and innovative research network on polysaccharide worldwide and a platform for bringing together companies and research centres.