ProTon News

Representatives of companies, university researchers, the Public Administration and KTOs professionals deliberated on the basic principles that must govern the collaboration in R&D and KT activities between enterprises and the University. , The event, whose motto was "Advancing Towards a Responsible Collaboration", was held at the University of the Balearic Islands, Palma de Mallorca, between the 11th and the 13th of June. The 170 participants were mainly KTO professionals from universities and PROs.

The Conference was opened by the President of the University of the Balearic Islands, Ms. Montserrat Casas; the General Director of Knowledge Transfer Programs of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, Ms. Otilia Mó; the President of the R&D Commission of the Conference of the Spanish University Presidents (CRUE), Mr. Francisco Tomás; the Executive Secretary of the R&D Committee of the CRUE, Mr. Francisco Quiles; the Manager of the Service of Investigation and Technological Development of the Council of Economy, Property and Innovation of the Regional Government of the Balearic Islands, Mrs. Bárbara Terrasa; the General Coordinator of RedOTRI, Ms. Ana Cortés; and the President of "Sa Nostra" Savings Bank, Mr. Fernando Alzamora.
In the inaugural presentation Mr. Andrew Dearing, General Secretary of the European Industrial Research Management Association (EIRMA), made a historical review of the collaborations between companies and other agents, and emphasized the benefits of the integration in greater structures of cooperation. Mr. Dearing also highlighted the enormous potential of the knowledge generated by public R&D, which is not always transferred into patents or licenses. Finally, he demonstrated the importance of the document "Responsible Partnering", a manual recommended and guaranteed by the EC on good practices in the cooperation university-enterprise. 
In the next place, Ms. Otilia Mó presented the programs included in the Spanish R&D National Plan whose main goals are to promote the public-private collaboration in the transfer of knowledge and innovation. 
The morning session was closed with a round table moderated by Ana Cortes, RedOTRI’s Coordinator, and with the presence of representatives from universities and enterprises, who deliberated on the key points on which a responsible collaboration should be based. On the enterprise side were present Mr. Antoni Carbona (GridSystems), Mr. Jorge Alemany (CELLERIX) and Mr. Juan Ignacio Burgaleta (Sener), whereas on the university side was present professor Antonio Delgado (University of Seville). All agreed on the necessity to establish guidelines to link interests and to conduct open and direct negotiations in order to achieve a successful relationship. The debate was complemented with the opinions of Mr. Fernando Conesa (Director of the KTO of the Polytechnic University of Valencia), who demanded to avoid generalizations, and suggested to approach each collaboration case individually, and with the ideas of Mr. José Enrique San José (Spanish Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology-CDTI), who demanded a more flexible criteria in the public subsidies that foster the collaboration between the University and the enterprises.
As in other conferences, the 2008 program included several technical workshops intensively attended. Their contents focused on the legal aspects of R&D collaborations, the new R&D&I organisational structures, and KT marketing and communication. 
After the presentation of the workshops’ conclusions, the program of day 13th was completed with a presentation by Mr. Pera Oliver, Director of Investigation, Technological Development and Innovation of the Balearic Government, who talked about the strategic R&D lines in the Balearic Islands.
Three network initiatives were communicated during the sessions of the last day: the results of the 2007 RedOTRI Educational Plan and the main lines of the 2008 edition, presented by Mr. Vicente Díez (OTRI-School Coordinator); the recently-published Technical Handbook on Total Costs Management in the Seventh Research Framework Programme, presented by Mr. Óscar Lopez (Coordinator of the European Projects Workgroup); and the activities of the G83 Contracts Workgroup, presented by its coordinator Ms. Dolores Blanco.
The RedOTRI 2008 Conference was closed by Ms. Ana Cortés, who presented a report of RedOTRI activities for the following year and the first indicators obtained by the RedOTRI 2008 KT Survey.

RedOTRI Publishes a Technical Handbook on Total Costs Management in the Seventh Research Framework Programme

 

ProTon Europe signs a Memorandum of Understanding with EBN
ProTon Europe signed a MoU with EBN, the European BIC Network, which is the leading pan-European network gathering Business and Innovation Centres (BICs). The mission of EBN is to offer services aiming at developing the BIC concept within and outside the European Union, at improving their performances & impact, at being active within international projects & events, and at facilitating networking and partnership mechanisms. ProTon Europe sees many advantages in this cooperation for its Members and the knowledge transfer professional community in general.

 

ProTon Europe 2008 KTP Award, Who develops the best Knowledge Transfer Plan?

 

Download the Guidelines for drafting a plan and the Rules of Participation in the contest. Contact secretariat@protoneurope.org if you need additional information.

• Registration form
   

 

New Commission Recommendation on the management of IP, On 10 April, the Commission adopted the attached Recommendation on the management of intellectual property (IP) in the knowledge transfer activities of universities and other public research organisations.

The specific objectives of the Recommendation are to assist Member States in the development of policies and guidelines in the area of intellectual property management and knowledge transfer activities and to promote the exploitation of publicly-funded research results.   In many cases this will entail public research organisations and private enterprise working more closely together, for example in academia-industry collaborations.

The Recommendation also outlines a Code of Practice which Member States and academic institutions could use as a basis for introducing or adapting national guidelines and legislation concerning the management of intellectual property or knowledge transfer.  The Code of Practice consists of three main sets of principles; principles for an internal intellectual property policy; principles for a knowledge transfer policy; and principles for collaborative and contract research.

Full text (in EN, FR, DE) can be found on:

http://ec.europa.eu/invest-in-research/pdf/ip_recommendation_en.pdf
http://ec.europa.eu/invest-in-research/pdf/ip_recommendation_fr.pdf
http://ec.europa.eu/invest-in-research/pdf/ip_recommendation_de.pdf
 

 

 

Second phase of the public consultation for the selection of the EIT, The Commission would like to inform you that the EIT Identification Committee has agreed the final set of criteria for the selection of the EIT Governing Board, taking into account the proposals received during the first stage of the public consultation held between 10th March - 28th March 2008.

The ad-hoc Identification Committee has launched today, Friday 11th April 2008, the second phase of the public consultation for the selection of the EIT Governing Board. During the second phase, relevant organisations are invited to propose candidates as future members of the Governing Board, bearing in mind the final selection criteria. Please note that the closing date for submissions is Friday, 25th April 2008.

All relevant information concerning the second phase of the open consultation at ec.europa.eu/eit.

 

• Final selection criteria for EIT governing board members

 

 

 

Open innovation & university: Competitiveness & development - Universitat Politècnica de València
The Polytechnical University of Valencia is organising an international conference on Open Innovation on 26-27 May 2008, as one of the big events of the celebration of its 40th anniversary. The conference has attracted a high level of speakers. A registration form is available at the conference website www.upv.es/openinnovation. ProTon Europe members attending this conference are offered a reduced registration fee of 1600 Euro. Members who wish to apply for this reduction can send an email to secretariat@protoneurope.org

 

The Turin Statement is now available

The Turin Statement, a summary of the conclusions of the conference, can now be downloaded.

 

Patent Policy Statement, ProTon Europe recommends improvements to the Patent System in Europe in order to facilitate knowledge transfer from public research.
The Special Interest Group (SIG) on Patent Policy has issued on August 31, 2007 a position paper with 8 practical recommendations for improving the patent system in Europe in order to facilitate knowledge transfer from public research.

For the reasons explained in the attached position paper, the patent system is a very important tool of knowledge transfer from public research and the relatively lower performance of European universities and research organisations in converting discoveries into innovation, when compared to the USA with approximately the same total research budget, is attributable to a large extent to the features of the patent system in Europe.

These recommendations include the introduction of a grace period and of a provisional patent system in the European Patent Convention. The National Partner Associations have been consulted and have contributed to these proposals. The members of ProTon Europe are encouraged to call the attention of their political representatives of regional, national or European level in order to progress these proposals.


Composition of the SIG on Patent Policy

Chair: Gilles Capart; Eoin O’Neil
Experts: Athina Ikonomidou; Bill Lindsay; Bo Heiden; Friedrich Rueckert; José Luis de Miguel; Pierre Brisson; Santiago Romo and the members of the Board


Patent Policy Statement

 

€30 million AIB Seed Capital Fund to be located at NovaUCD, Dublin, 11 July 2007: The recently announced €30 million AIB Seed Capital Fund is to be located at NovaUCD, the Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre at University College Dublin. AIB was one of the founding sponsors which funded the construction of NovaUCD which formally opened in 2003.

The AIB Seed Capital Fund, which is being equally funded by AIB and Enterprise Ireland is the first fund to be established under Enterprise Ireland’s €175 million Seed and Venture Capital Scheme 2007-2012.

Welcoming the establishment of the AIB Seed Capital Fund Dr Pat Frain, Director, NovaUCD said, “One of the challenges facing UCD is to accelerate the establishment of new ventures to commercialise innovative ideas and intellectual property arising from its growing research programmes. Two key issues in this regard are access to management expertise and the availability of seed funding.” He added, “This new fund is particularly welcomed since it will focus on early stage high-potential start-ups such as those spinning out from UCD research.”

The average initial investment to be made by the fund will be in the order of €250,000 but smaller investments of €100,000 will also be evaluated. The Fund has an economic life of seven years and it is expected that it will make in the region of 50 to 60 investments.

For further information contact:
Micéal Whelan, NovaUCD, tel: (01) 716 3712, e-mail: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie

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NovaUCD is University College Dublin’s €11 million Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre.  NovaUCD is responsible for the commercialisation of intellectual property arising from UCD research and for the development of co-operation with industry and business. NovaUCD as a purpose-built centre also nurtures new technology and knowledge-intensive enterprises. NovaUCD has over 40 incubation units, including bio-incubation units, and provides innovators and entrepreneurs with the necessary support and knowledge to take their ideas from proof of principle to commercial success. Twenty-two knowledge-intensive companies are currently located in NovaUCD. NovaUCD has been funded through a unique public-private partnership that includes AIB Bank, Arthur Cox, Deloitte, Enterprise Ireland, Ericsson, Goodbody Stockbrokers, UCD and Xilinx. For further information visit www.ucd.ie/nova.

The AIB Seed Capital Fund is the first fund to be established under the €175 million Seed and Venture Capital Scheme. In 2006, AIB was selected by Enterprise Ireland to partner with them on an exclusive basis to create a €30 million Seed Capital Fund.  The selection was made as a result of AIB’s participation in a competitive tender process.  For further information visit www.aibseedcapitalfund.ie

AIB’s position in the business banking market is evidenced by independent research (MRBI) which confirms that “AIB has a relationship with one in every two of the estimated 250,000 Irish SME’s” – making it Ireland’s largest business bank. AIB supports SME’s by providing finance for credit worthy and performance related projects.  In 2006 AIB’s total lending to Irish business exceeded €30bn, up over 30% on 2005 levels.

Seed and Venture Capital Scheme 2007-2012 Enterprise Ireland is investing €175m in a new round of Venture Capital funding, which will create an estimated overall investment of €1bn in start-up, early stage and development stage businesses. This scheme was announced in May 2006.

 

How DETECT-it2 can assist you in FP7 :: Get involved in FP7

DETECT-it 2 is open to all organisations (SMEs, research institutions etc) who are interested in:

• Submitting a proposal for new research to be part-funded through FP7 (bottom up approach);
• Participating in FP7 projects led by other partners (top down approach).

All organizations need to register on the DETECT-it2 database in order to benefit from the FREE Detect-it2 services.


How DETECTit2 can help you?:

If you have a PROJECT IDEA, the FP7 experts & BIC Animators can give you technical feedback on your project idea into the FP7 timing. If you are looking for PARTNERS, the Partner Search service can help you in making a pan European consortia through the online tool.

Click here to register. When registering select PROTON as DETECT-it2 contact point so you can have direct assistance.

 

DETECT-it 2 - Partner Search online, The DETECT-it 2 partner search is now online!

The DETECT-it network is made up of partners from DETECT-it 1 and DETECT-it 2 and associate partners who have assisted in training and information sessions about the project.
 
Each partner has a Regional Contact Point who can provide you with information and advice on how to use DETECT-it 2 services to get support for your research ideas in FP7.

When viewing the details for a Partner Search, if you would like to express you interest, click on the "Submit Expression of Interest" button.

NOTE: In order to reply to a specific partner search, you need to be logged-on.

 

Experiences on the US knowledge transfer and innovation system, April 2007

This report is based on the insight gained during a visit of European Union and Member States officials and the chair of ProTon Europe to the United States of America.

The visit consisted in a seminar on the US innovation system held in Washington DC, 26 March 2007 followed by meetings with university staff at four selected US universities with an outstanding record in successfully transferring knowledge and technology to industry.

 

Associate Membership Programme for Companies. Get connected to University knowledge professionals, ProTon Europe helps to transform Science into Business

Join ProTon Europe by registering on our website

ProTon Europe is a non-profit Association representing the European Universities Knowledge Transfer Offices - KTOs. One of the goals of the KTOs is to help universities and businesses to interact. KTOs are professionals in patenting and licensing as well as in the setting up of spin-off companies. ProTon Europe is the pan-European Association for the KTOs.

From the beginning of this year we have started an Associate Membership programme for companies and institutions like yours. We believe that we have many interesting programs and tools that might help you to grow and prosper.

1. We organize and are developing several events, training sessions, development tools and databanks that are essential in deepening your knowledge and increase your networking with potential partners and clients.
2. With us you have the possibility to meet some of the key actors in scientific research and innovative companies. KTOs are ideally positioned to search and find research capabilities and innovations for your needs. Through ProTon Europe you can successfully access the knowledge of the European universities.
3. We are located in Brussels, where key decisions on patenting, R&D policy, science and industrial policy are made. Our priority aim is to influence the main actors for achieving a better and less burdensome patenting regime and to promote innovation enhancing policies. We would like to hear about your areas of interest and concern.

ProTon Europe’s structure has been developed with the contribution from the European Commission Gate 2 Growth Programme.

On our web-site you find more information about our activities and how you can apply for Associate Membership.

The Associate Membership fee for 2007 is 450 euro.

 

A Summary Report of the FY 2005 ProTon Europe survey is now available

The second ProTon Europe Annual Survey (PAS) for the year 2005 captures the profile and level of knowledge transfer (KT) activities carried out by the dedicated Knowledge Transfer Offices (KTO) affiliated to European Public Research Organisations (PRO).

Please click here to download a copy of a report summarising the main conclusions.

 

Industrial support for European research demonstrates a thriving knowledge transfer culture in EU

A pan-European survey conducted by Proton Europe demonstrates that Industrial funding of research is one measure where we continue to outstrip the US.  This is the largest ever survey in Europe of KT activity from research institutions

Although R&D research expenditures of the universities is about the same in Europe and in the USA (approx 31 Billion Euros), the level of collaborative research with industry and research institutions was double that in the USA in 2004 and has stayed ahead in 2005. 

In the US industrial funding of research runs at around 7% of total and there has been significant investment recently by some leading US universities to develop this activity.  In Europe the percentage varies quite significantly but there are some universities already getting far more investment from industry with levels of 30%+ reported against top levels in the US of around 20%. 

The question for European industry and policy makers is how to sustain and grow that level of investment and turn it into products for the future.

• Almost 25% of research institutions report KT activity through interactions with industry but have no IP patented
• The research expenditure needed in Europe to produce one patent is significant at €4M for each patent filed and around €11M for extension internationally.
• The distribution of the IPR protection activity reveals an important concentration.  Some 31% of patent first filings are made by 3% of the respondents.
• The level of patent filing and conclusion of licences is about 5 times lower than in the USA
• The level of royalties is about ten times lower due to the time lag effect
• The number of spin outs is comparable to the US (although the effort required to spin them out and their rate of growth are different)

One conclusion is that Europe is lagging behind in all knowledge transfer activities that are based on patents by PROs and that more needs to be done at national and at EU level to address this.

The survey, which encompasses a wide range of metrics to reflect the extensive parameters of knowledge transfer activity between research institute ions and industry  was the 2nd conducted by ProTon Europe.
The survey captures the profile and level of knowledge transfer (KT) activities carried out by the dedicated Knowledge Transfer Offices (KTO) affiliated to European Public Research Organisations (PRO). The scope of KT in Europe is wider than that described by traditional “technology transfer” (TT). Its form varies across countries and is highly influenced by the different national legal and institutional frameworks.

KT related functions performed by KTOs




The survey allows comparison for the first time across institutions and across European countries.  Comparisons with the USA are restricted to the areas surveyed by the AUTM survey on technology transfer.

The 2005 results show that a consolidated KT process is underway in many European countries. With the exception of those in the UK and Spain, most KTOs were established less than 10 years ago. They engage in a wide range of KT activities from contract and collaborative research to licensing and spin-off creation.

The KT output indicators related to the traditional Technology Transfer activity (invention disclosures, patent filing, licensing) for European KTOs show a strengthening performance compared to figures for the US based on the AUTM licensing survey.

The creation of new companies in Europe, based on PROs’ research results is also a major KTO activity, whose outputs are catching up with the US; However, it is company growth and persistence in the market rather than formal setup that contributes to the success of spinoffs.  As a result the significance of market conditions, the context and of course the very different venture capital situation in Europe is highlighted – and out of the hands of the research organisations. 

Further Information:
Fernando Conesa,
Deputy Director,
CTT
Universidad Politecnica De Valencia
Spain

T: 0034 963 877 409
E:fconesa@ctt.upv.es

 

European Research Area - Consultation now Open
Members may be interested in the public consultation on ERA which was launched on 1 May.

There is a section on knowledge sharing which (amongst other issues such as open access) looks to break the Bayh-Dole act down into it's constitutent parts and see if anyone wants it at EU level (either via new legislation, or alternative methods such as a charter / financial incentives / ???)
 
Feel free to answer the questionnaire and bring it to the attention of your stakeholders!
 

 

The 2006 annual report of ProTon Europe is now available
You will find in this report a summary of the 2006 operations and of the current state of the association. The Vienna Statement, the annual accounts and the revised by-laws approved by the general assembly of December 12, 2006 are also included in this useful reference document. Printed copies are available from the secretariat on request. Download the pdf version.