This is a cute video I have found recently on YouTube. It is describing in a very funny way the ‘world of chemistry’ with the aim to promote an EU programme - Marie Curie actions - for research careers:
This post was submitted by MarieCurieFan.
84% of European SMEs think that the education system and in particular school curricula do not focus enough on entrepreneurship, calling for a stronger link between the SME community and schools. 66% supported setting up EU programmes for cross-border mobility and e-skills.
France wants to promote its “pôles de competitivité” system to the Commission as an example to be followed across Europe. This model brings small and larger businesses together as part of a cluster to address particular technologies.
Limited innovative capacities and limited R&D expenditure
This aspect was also a central focus of the Stoléru group, which concluded that small, innovative businesses – similar to the US system - should be awarded a 15% quota of the research and development market in Europe. The proposal is based on the experience with the French SME pact, put in place in 2005, which represents a voluntary commitment made by large public or private entities.
The proceedings are in separate audio files. In order to listen to the files, you will need the latest Flash plugin for your browser, which you can get here. Alternatively, you can right-click on the links to the files, download them to your desktop and listen to them in your favourite media player.
INRIA CEO Michel Cosnard set the scene: “Technology transfer needs collaboration between research organisations and companies,” he said, adding that INRIA is of course well-prepared to meet this challenge: “Working with industry is in our culture, I would say: in our blood.” cosnard.mp3
Zoran Stancic, the deputy director-general in charge of “scientific advances” within the Commission’s Research Directorate-General, pointed out what the Commission’s priority is, namely “increasing the excellence of EU research”. Stancic repeatedly stressed the importance of what the called “the proper management of intellectual property rights” in order to achieve this target. stancic.mp3
Laurent Kott, the CEO of INRIA TRANSFERT, outlined the story of that venture, which was set up in 1998 in order to empower and enlarge INRIA’s start-up policy and has since given birth to no less than 90 spin-out companies. Reason enough for Kott to call it “quite successful”, but, he stressed, still a long way from systematically turning “promising research results” into “success stories”. kott.mp3
EurActiv publisher Christophe Leclercq opened the panel discussion with a question to all panelists: “Microsoft, eBay, Amazon, others, are all American. They were not born in Europe. Why aren’t there companies similar to these companies in Europe?” leclercq.mp3
Pierre Vigier, in charge of innovation policy with the Commission’s DG Enterprise, suggested to look at successful startups, all of which are marked, he said, by business school students coupling up with scientists “because they were open to that”. Therefore, Vigier concluded, what is needed is “a new mindset”, starting with universities and public research organisations. vigier.mp3
MEP Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, a German Liberal sitting on the Parliament’s Industry, Transport, Research and Energy (ITRE) Committee, pointed out that “innovation is the contrary of research”, namely that it is about turning knowledge into money, whereas research turns money into knowledge. chatzi.mp3
Magnus Madfors, the research and development director at telecommunication company Ericsson, stressed that “different things have different time scales”, for which resason EU research framework programmes don’t fit togehter too well with innovation cycles in ICT. madfors.mp3
The head of Microsoft’s research laboratory in Cambridge, UK, Andrew Herbert, contributed his personal recipe for success, which is to “hire the smartest people, then trust them - let them do their research”. herbert.mp3
Bruno Sportisse, INRIA’s director for technology transfer and innovation, agreed that “people are key”, adding that it was therefore essential to focus on the right conditions for transfers, as well of researchers as of knowledge. sportisse.mp3
Following a panel discussion panel.mp3, including a short sum-up round sum-up.mp3, in which all panelists outlined their main theses, this led to the concluding remarks, which were given by Catherine Trautmann, a former French minister and now a colleague of Chatzimarkakis’s on the ITRE committee, of which she is also a co-chair.
“ICT investment”, Trautmann said, is also a question of training, for which reason “the digital challenge” translates into a simple formula: “Skills, skills, skills…”trautmann1.mp3
Dans le cadre des “Rendez-vous de l’INRIA”, Laurent Kott, Directeur general d’INRIA Transfert, a bien voulu répondre à deux questions majeures sur le thème du transfert de technologie et de connaissance au sein de l’Union européenne.
En particulier, il souligne « comme l’a précédemment évoqué Pierre Vigier, qu’une des difficultés majeures de l’Europe, est que ce n’est pas un marché unique. Pour une entreprise née en France, venir travailler en Allemagne, c’est parfois aussi compliqué qu’aller directement s’implanter aux Etats-Unis. Comme le marché est beaucoup plus grand aux Etats-Unis, l’entreprise qui est née en France va aux Etats-Unis, l’entreprise qui est né en Allemagne va aux Etats-Unis, l’entreprise qui est né en Angleterre va aux Etats-Unis, etc. Et la moralité de l’histoire est qu’une fois implantée sur le marché des Etats-Unis, la probabilité que l’entreprise se fasse racheter par une enterprise états-unienne augmente d’autant plus. Donc, nous nous trouvons en face d’un paradoxe fort, c’est qu’aujourd’hui une entreprise spécialisée dans la technologie a besoin d’un grand marché, le marché des Etats-Unis représente 250 millions de personnes, mais c’est aussi un marché unique. Le marché français, pour atteindre ce niveau de 250 millions de personnes, devrait être augmenté d’au moins quatre autres grands pays. Et donc cela signifie pour une jeune entreprise apprendre quatre régimes sociaux, quatre régimes fiscaux, quatre régimes de droit social, etc. Et là, il existe une barrière d’entrée très importante”.
Directeur général d’INRIA-Transfert (depuis 1998), ancien élève de l’École normale supérieure de Cachan, Laurent Kott est docteur ès mathématiques, mention Informatique.
Skills are key for meeting Europe’s technology challenge, says French MEP Catherine Trautmann, who gave the closing remarks at the Rendez-vous de l’INRIA event in Brussels on 28 May 2008.
Catherine Trautmann is a Member of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament. The French MEP serves as the Vice-President of the Parliament’s Industry, Transport, Research and Environment (ITRE) Committee.
Malik Ghallab, Délégué Général à la Recherche et au Transfert pour l’Innovation de l’INRIA, donne ses commentaires sur les enjeux que rencontre son institution à Bruxelles et, plus largement, sur les défis de la politique de la recherche et de l’innovation au sein de l’Union européenne.
L’INRIA est largement connu et reconnu en termes de recherche académique. Les efforts et la stratégie de l’INRIA au niveau du transfert et de l’innovation ne sont peut-être pas perçus de la même manière, et, il est important que nous apparaissions également sous cet angle d’un organisme qui met sur le même plan et qui essaie de mener à la fois conjointement excellence scientifique et transfert technologique, que notre motivation d’optimiser et d’amplifier au maximum l’impact du transfert de technologie de la recherche en termes de développements technologiques soit perçu au niveau de Bruxelles et de nos partenaires européens, et que, grâce à cette meilleure perception nous puissions mieux jouer cette deuxième carte qui pour nous est aussi importante que celle d’un fort impact technologique de nos recherches.
Ecoutez l’interview de Malik Ghallab ([mp3], 7:15 min) ici:
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Pierre Vigier, Deputy Head of Unit “Innovation policy development” in the Commisson’s Enterprise Directorate-General comments on Europe’s shortcomings in technology transfer:
Technology transfer happens when two conditions are fulfilled: First, the existence of a genuine economic interest and secondly that the right conditions for legal protection exist. The first point depends of the actors of technology transfer themselves, and the precondition for along-term effective collaboration is trust. What is needed is a cultural attitude towards knowledge sharing: Identification of the goals, building genuine shared interest.
Listen to the full interview with Pierre Vigier here:
([mp3], 4:25 min)
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Why is Europe lagging so far behind the United States when it comes to technology transfer? How can European research better be turned into technological innovation? And what can the European Union do to foster this process?
Zoran Stancic, Deputy Director General in charge of sientific advances with the European Commission, answers Blogactiv’s questions on technology transfer.
Listen to the full interview with Zoran Stancic ([mp3], 5:30 min) here.
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The head of Microsoft’s prestigious research facility in Cambridge comments on Europe’s strengths and weaknesses with respect to technology transfer:
I think in many areas, Europe is good, but we are not as good as our competitors in America or in China. In those countries, there is much more of an expectation that people doing research in universities as well as having an academic perspective will also think about how their ideas can be exploited, either by partnering with industry or by creating spin-out companies.
Listen to the full interview with Andrew Herbert here. [mp3], 5:45 min
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Michel Cosnard, the chairman of the French Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique (INRIA), on the dialogue between big companies and research organisations:
Do you think that there is a gap between business and scientific community in Europe?
The situation regarding the field of information and communication science and technology (ICST) is very diverse between countries and organisations.
I think that, for example, Finland has been making a lot of progress for 15 years and the situation now seems to be satisfactory (as illustrated by the success of Nokia). In France, my organisation INRIA has always been involved in technology transfer but that has not been the case for universities or CNRS some ten years ago. This has, however, improved a lot in recent years. Each member state has universities that are more focused on basic research but sometimes technology transfer (TT) is not taken seriously enough and therefore there are no good results.
So, the situation is diverse and the gap is mainly about companies and universities, because research organisations often have a mission to work with companies, such as the German Frauenhofer Institute, the French Inria or the French atomic energy commission.
Does Europe have a problem with technology transfer?
The problem is not so much that universities are doing too much basic research, it is more about companies not taking care of basic research or future and emerging technologies in their strategic plans. Companies are too shy in this respect and don’t care about basic research. We can understand that they themselves are not doing it but in Europe, in general, they are not even supporting the basic research done elsewhere. I think companies need to sustain basic research in Europe.
At least, in French universities the highest degree you can have is a PhD, while the French companies don’t like this title or recognise it. If a person has a PhD in computer science for example, he will have a hard time obtaining a good position in a company. The person is seen by companies as being “too basic-research oriented” and without enough interest for companies. This is a very strange situation. I think that companies, in particular big companies, need to have staff who know what research, in particular basic research, is. We need to have more people going from one side to the other. However, I hope that the situation is about to evolve, especially due to the growing impact of the so-called CIFRE PhD (a PhD carried out in a company partially with public funding).
Can the European Commission do anything to remedy this problem?
The salary gap between those who work in science and companies is important. We could imagine an EU programme financing the difference in salary for a company person who wants to go for a while into a research organisation. This would also allow research organisations to hire people from companies.
Should technology transfer be professionalised in Europe and how could this be done?
Technology transfer (TT) is done in several ways. One of them is cooperation and collaborative programmes between big companies and research organisations. Here, we need to have better understanding between the parties. It is a matter of people working together and big advances have been made in the design and construction of clusters. This is a good step towards better interaction.
Another way to do TT is to transfer people from research labs to companies. This is a kind of transfer of competences, which can be increased as well.
The third way to do TT is the creation of start ups. When a start up is created from a research laboratory or organisation – it is more like a way to test some ideas. It is not always about a new product that has been designed but some type of prototype for which the market is not well defined, because we are not working on a concrete domain.
TT through the creation of start ups is a good way - some will evolve and become SMEs or big companies or then just be bought up by other companies.
We need more support for start up creation and possibilities for them to grow quicker. For this we need more money and venture capital. Venture capital in Europe is some three to five times less than in the United States, even though there are more people in Europe. There is a big gap in venture capital and the start ups cannot grow at the same speed as in the US.
Why is there then so little venture capital in Europe?
Maybe because Europe is still too fragmented. This is also the case for the venture capitalists. They don’t know where to go. In the US the situation is that there are big clusters, like Silicon Valley.
There are cluster comparable to Silicon Valley in Europe as well, but perhaps they are not credible enough. If you look for example at microelectronics, there are only three big centres in Europe, whereas the situation in the telecommunications sector or the software technology one is far more diverse.
So we need to have more concentration and some flagship clusters should emerge from these. Clusters bridging fundamental and applied research are not easy to launch because it takes time to have a common vocabulary and to get to know each other, but there is already some good progress and this is good for competitiveness and innovation.
What are the conditions for efficient technology transfer in Europe?
When we launch a new programme at Inria, we always think of the outcome of the programme and how to sell it. Often the outcome is some kind of technology or software development or a technology that is patented. But it is not enough to just create a technology - it also needs to be transferred. So for each technology we are trying to find the right vector – to know with whom and what it could work.
But we need to have more and better evidence earlier on the research agenda to ascertain what the market could be and which companies could be interested in what we are doing. This is not so easy when we are engaging in a process with researchers that are more interested in obtaining the creativity process than looking towards transfer.
At Inria, we have very good engineers and researchers, but a good researcher or engineer is not always a good manager. Therefore it is important to team these people with good managers and entrepreneurs. However, finding good managers and entrepreneurs is really not easy. This is the most difficult part in creating start ups – building a good team.
What do think of the role of IPR in technology transfer? Could a Community patent ease TT in Europe?
The question of patents is a rather difficult one. When patenting was invented, patent protection was more about circulation and dissemination of ideas, disclosing an invention once it was patented. Nowadays, sometimes, the patent is seen as complete protection.
I’m very much in favour of a European patent rather than several national patents. In addition, we need to have a real European policy on patenting. However, we should be very careful when delivering patents to make sure that they do not become barriers for innovation. Patents should be delivered for real progress in technology, not for broad ideas. Patenting broad areas could be a barrier against innovation.
We should also be careful about ethical barriers to innovation for example in patenting some system that may reduce human freedoms, such as some audio-video surveillance systems reducing privacy.
There is also the question of software patents. We should be very careful with what we are patenting. If you have a very good algorithm for computing some mathematical function, I don’t think it can be patented – it should be published. What could be patented is a system designed for computing the function, not the algorithm.
Ideas should not be allowed to get a patent. Ideas should be free and disseminated very rapidly without barriers because this is the source of progress.
How important are standards for technology transfer?
Standards are very important for developing a market and securing companies and customers. In our field, standards are very important for ensuring interoperability. Software systems should interoperate. If they don’t, it is once again against progress. Web technologies should interoperate as well. It would be waste of energy and resources if everything needed to be translated from one country to another.
The main question is not to define a standard per se, but to define the best standard that will ensure interoperability. If we look at the web, the HTML standard was the most efficient way to ensure the interoperability of the web. Internet and web technology were based on standards for interoperability, which was not, for example, the case in telecommunications for years.
Sometimes standards are seen as a way to protect market and that is not good. It is against market development.
What do you expect the outcome of your conference on technology transfer
in Brussels on 28 May will be?
We think that we can show Inria’s experience in TT. Inria is 40 years old and in the field of ICST we have experience and success and we have learned from the past so we can deliver our own message on the issue.
On the other hand, we are humble. We don’t know everything and things are changing at European level so we would like to learn from other organisations and the EU institutions so to have a better understanding on how things evolve and if Inria is still in the good direction. We also wish to learn how we can network better with our sister organisations in Europe.
Inria is doing TT in France on start up creation and with big French companies. But we want to have more interaction with European companies. It is a general view. We have very good partnerships with Philips in the Netherlands, Nokia in Finland or Telefonica in Spain, but it is not enough. We can have more relations with non-French companies
Could the Commission act as facilitator or do something to support transnational, cross-border technology transfer?
The drawback of competitiveness clusters is that they are geographically focused. And sometimes people don’t make the effort to go outside to see if there are other research centres, people or companies that may be more suited for what they are doing.
The EU could help networking between the clusters as well as create better linkages between companies and research organisations and centres.
Interview: EurActiv.com
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