presentation | program | A2B Portal

Innovation Ddissemination for Academia to Business (A2B)

The main objective of WG5 is to facilitate innovation transfer from A2B, establishing relationships between institutions and firms of the partner countries in order to:

• exchange information
• build up a network among universities, research centers, training centers, scientific parks, entrepreneurial associations
• promote cooperation and offer opportunities to SMEs to take part in the innovation dissemination processes and benefit from the output of the research activities.

As first step, a SWOT analysis has been carried out through data collection and interviews with managers of research institutions and companies in order to outline how the transfer process works and could work and how to solve the problems. All the evidence makes it clear that for improving exchanges and build up a network strategy it is crucial:

• to develop an intermediary level of “disseminators” between research centers and firms
• to strengthen a public “direction” of the whole process, so that dissemination A2B become part of public policies
• to support mixed (public/private) experiences, since SMEs alone cannot afford the high costs of innovation
• to promote a cluster strategy in order to maximize all resources (human, organizational, infrastructural, etc) present in a given area
• to construct a kind of “umbrella” organization for merging different research institutions in order to strengthen and tighten their “offer” on the market of projects and direct research.

The final workshop, starting from the data collected in the preparatory phase, has focused:

• How to develop methodologies for promoting transfer of innovations from academia to enterprises.
• How to promote relationships and exchanges among SMEs, researchers and administrators for developing integration between academia and business, through a) direct contacts, b) A2B portal and other internet facilities, c) dissemination activities.
• How to create a data base of best practices, information, services for those SMEs willing to introduce new technologies.
• How to develop and share ideas and project for future cooperation, after the end of the project.

An interesting output of WG5 is that all institutions, associations and companies involved and put in contacts have expressed their willingness to continue in strengthening ties and searching more effective forms of cooperation.