Science to Business Programme

In the Science to Business programme, hosted at the Lingotto Conference Centre, ESOF2010 will offer a series of appointments dedicated to business and potential entrepreneurs, with events that deal with applied research and opportunities for development of new highly innovative businesses – with a special focus on Torino’s fields of excellence.

The Science to Business Programme was built bottom-up thanks to an open Call for Proposals that closed on 30 September 2009. We received 46 proposals from 13 countries.

Discussion in the Science to Business Programme will focus on seven themes:

1. Intellectual property management (IPM) - Is IPM primarily a way to maximize the exploitation of research or to block knowledge sharing? Is IPM a way to fund new research?
2. University - Industry relationship - Which should be the characteristics of successful university-industry relationships? How can fundamentally different organizational cultures cooperate toward common goals?
3. Public-private research integration - Which should be the boundaries between public and private research? How could they optimally integrate together?
4. Open Innovation - Which should be the key elements for optimally exploiting the potential of the Open Innovation paradigm?
5. The Knowledge triangle - Which could be the implementation mechanisms of the education-research-innovation triangle? Could the knowledge triangle be self-sustainable?
6. European, national and regional policies - How should different scale research and innovation policies be harmonised? Which could be the key drivers of commonalities and specificities negotiation?
7. Incubators, spin-offs, business angels, venture capital - How could emerging ventures be assisted in developing their potential business? Are the current approaches of business angels, venture capitalists and science brokers adequate to sustain the development of incubators and spin-offs?

Science to Business offers a specific session format, the showcase, an opportunity for non profit organisations, universities and incubators to present innovative activities or prototypes.

Within the Science to Business Programme a brand new event will take place: the European Research&Business Speed Dating: a partnering event organised in the framework of the Enterprise Europe Network to foster collaborative research between science and industry, and in particular Small and Medium Enterprises. One to one meetings will be planned to encourage the building of consortia to participate to projects co-financed by the 7 Framework Programme (FP7).