ProTon Europe Annual Conference

ProTon Europe Fifth Annual Conference “Building Successful Partnerships” 30 January – 1 February 2008, Turin, Italy

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

The two-day annual conference is the flagship event in the ProTon Europe calendar and brings together key players from across Europe working at the interface between public research and industry. It provides an opportunity to take stock of current thinking, policy and practice in areas of relevance to the knowledge transfer profession. At its fifth annual conference entitled “Building Successful Partnerships”, the focus will be put on the most effective ways to work with industry through creating partnerships that provide long-term benefits and relationships for everyone. Through speakers’ best practice cases and first-hand experience delegates will receive insights into models and approaches which allow the research world and industry to work more effectively in order to bring universitydeveloped knowledge to the market-place. The international speaking panel includes representatives of industry and knowledge transfer practitioners from universities and research centres around Europe and beyond.

FORMAT

The event begins with the General Assembly for ProTon Europe members at 18.00 on Wednesday 30 January, followed by a welcome reception for all conference delegates from 19.30 to 21.00. The conference registration desk will open at 8.30 on Thursday 31 January. The opening plenary session will run from 9.20 to 13.00 and a choice of three parallel sessions will be offered in the afternoon from 14.30 to 17.30. The conference dinner will take place on the Thursday evening from 19.30 to 23.00.
The conference continues on the morning of Friday 1 February with three parallel sessions, followed by a closing plenary session in the afternoon, and concludes with the Turin Statement which will highlight the main conclusions of the conference.

DATE/LOCATION

The General Assembly and welcome reception will be held on 30 January from 18.00-21.00 in the new headquarters of the I3P incubator of the Politecnico di Torino, which is situated in the heart of the Cittadella Politecnico at Corso Castelfidardo 30/a, 10129 Torino. The conference itself will take place on 31 January and 1 February at the Congress Centre “Torino Incontra”, via Nino Costa, 8, 10123 Torino.

ACCOMMODATION

Accommodation may be booked by completing the form specially provided by the central hotel booking service. The price for a single room ranges from 80 EUR to 155 EUR per night. Rooms will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis, depending on availability. The deadline for guaranteed bookings is 14 December 2007.

LANGUAGE

The working language of the conference is English.

PARTICIPANTS

The conference is of relevance to programme managers and practitioners working to promote knowledge transfer between public research and industry, e.g. university knowledge transfer officers, research commercialisation managers, IPR and licensing executives, technology transfer consultants and other public and private players involved in shaping and driving the process. The conference is an excellent occasion to meet and network with the 260 members of the ProTon Europe association.

COST

Attendance at the conference costs 400 EUR for 2 days for ProTon Europe members (300 EUR for members from CEEC). The fee for 1 day for ProTon Europe members is 300 EUR (200 for CEEC members). The price for non-members is 600 EUR (2 days) or 375 EUR (1 day). The conference fee covers all documentation and materials, as well as lunch and refreshments on each day of the conference, the welcome reception and the conference dinner. The conference dinner costs 75 EUR for accompanying guests, payable in cash at the conference registration desk.

ORGANISERS

The conference is organised by ProTon Europe, Europe’s premier association representing knowledge transfer staff in universities and research centres across Europe, in collaboration with COREP, Consorzio per la Ricerca e l’Educazione Permanente and Netval, the Italian association of KTOs. COREP is a Turinbased consortium which promotes collaborative initiatives between local universities, the services and production sectors and public institutions in the areas of technology transfer and high-level advanced training. COREP celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2007. The conference also receives the support of the NANOMAT project, the SISA project, the ILO Piemonte, Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato e Agricoltura di Torino, and it being held under the auspices of the Città di Torino and the Provincia di Torino.