There are high expectations by society and policy makers today, that science and research should expand and improve their interaction with industry to solve the grand challenges of our time, like fighting cancer, climate change or the current COVID-19 pandemic. To unlock the innovation potential of research infrastructures like particle accelerators or x-ray lasers we therefore need disruptive, faster and rearranged cooperation patterns with industry partners in order to work on solutions for these pressing societal problems.
A great way of bridging the world of science and industry is the creation of micro and small sized private companies acting as an intermediary between research infrastructures and industrial customers, providing targeted support and consultation based on analytical research and measurement services in a variety of fields on a contractual basis – so called Commercial Analytical Research Organisations (CAROs). This helps the research institutions because they do not have to provide their own resources for as many industrial issues as possible, it helps industry because they get better and easier access to large scale research facilities, and it helps a balanced development in the Baltic Sea Region and Europe because less innovative countries also get the chance to offer their own scientific services and thus mitigate the brain drain. By solving research challenges in areas like e.g. New Materials or NanoTech and thus significantly expedite innovation, these companies can create and expand a new market in material science.
This conference aims at spreading the word on improving research-industry cooperation and showcasing these intermediary companies and how they work.
The event will
- address the importance and conditions of this new type of enterprise acting as intermediary between industry and academic research
- showcase successful intermediary companies and the business models that made them excel
- show which public support programs for intermediary companies already exist within the Baltic Sea Region
- explore which additional examples of financing could help to support new intermediary companies and hence boost innovation and encourage entrepreneurship in the BSR
This event is aimed at policy makers from the EU Commission, science ministries, science community, regional development agencies, representatives of CAROs, representatives of analytical research facilities, knowledge institutions, industry and business representatives and financial investors.
The online coordinates for this conference will be posted as soon as the schedule is finalized.
Further information can be found on the conference website.
