The European Commission invested €550 million in 129 projects under the “Biotechnologies” activity area of FP7 leading to solutions to some of the most pressing societal challenges

Biotechnology is among today’s most innovative technologies and is a significant driver of economic growth within the European Bioeconomy. The European Commission invested €550 million in 129 projects under the “Biotechnologies” activity area of FP7. Some 1 750 research teams were involved. EU-funded projects under this Activity are helping increase EU competitiveness by enhancing scientific knowledge and finding innovative solutions to global problems in relation to demand for renewable sources of energy, waste reduction, greening industries, etc. and key enabling biotechnologies.

The following key figures and data illustrate the main achievements in terms of SME involvement in FP7 biotechnology projects in the period 2007-2013:

• 75% of total EU funding was allocated to topics targeting SMEs.

• SMEs received 25% of the EU contribution provided to project partners. This is well above the EU target of 15%.

• About 38% of participants were SMEs, making them the best represented organisation type (here each SME is counted only once, regardless of the number of projects in which they were involved).

• On average, 90% of EU-funded projects involved at least one SME.

Innovative SMEs towards innovation and market breakthroughs

Participating SMEs were active in four key areas: Research and Development & Manufacturing (56%), consultancy and services (21%), basic R&D (18%), communication and ITC (5%).

Manufacturing, which attracted the most SMEs, mostly involved the production and marketing of bio-based products, goods, services, technologies and facilities. Many were heavily involved in research and technological development to improve and optimise the production chain, proof-of-concept demonstrations, and the commercialisation of research results.

The study shows that they have a crucial role in promoting innovation and facilitating the transition of bio-inventions from the research lab to the market:

• They keep close collaborative relationships with academia and research organisations (e.g.: several SMEs are spin offs, they were founded by scientists and they have highly qualified academic research staff, members of the board of directors or managers are prominent university professors, and they are involved in co-publications, etc.).

• They have more flexible business structures than public organisations such as research centres and universities (and therefore can more easily hire qualified scientific staff).

• They have direct contact with industry at large and the marketplace, so are well-positioned to promote ready-made solutions in the marketplace.

• They are leaders in innovative ideas that meet customers’ specific and unique requirements.

SMEs participated as project partners 520 times.

Most were private, commercial companies. Spinoffs took part 53 times, spin-outs 8 times and start-ups 25 times. The highest participation rate was from German SMEs (113 times), followed by SMEs from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Spain.

Eight SMEs took the lead as project coordinators, while around 130 led at least one work package – the majority of these (52%) were R&D work packages, followed by project management and service provision (41%).

SME participation provided important added value for the project

The success of a project cannot be attributed to a single participant; project outcomes greatly depend on the degree of cooperation between the different project partners, including academia, research organisations and industry (large enterprises and SMEs).

However, the involvement of SMEs does contribute to the performance of an EU-funded project for the following reasons:

• The largest group of SME participants (71%) performed research and technological development tasks. These tasks relied on SME expertise and their specialist profiles, technology and know-how which had an important competitive advantage. This specialisation was crucial to fulfilling project requirements and resulted in added project value.

• SMEs supported project coordinators, ensuring smooth coordination. A 41% of the SMEs led work packages on project management. They performed crucial services on project management including dissemination and communication of project results, preparation of intermediate and final reports, consultancy services (such as market analysis) and life cycle assessments.

• SMEs were strategically positioned to help shape projects from a commercial exploitation perspective: 46% of the SMEs were involved in the commercial exploitation of results, knowledge transfer and intellectual property rights management.

The SMEs involved in EU-funded projects made important contributions to the projects at different stages. At the same time, involvement had a positive impact on many aspects of their business, such as:

• Enhancing or consolidating know-how and expertise in a particular area covered by the project.

• Acquiring new methods, tools, processes and products developed within the projects.

• Making it easier to carry out demonstration activities to identify potential applications and scale them up.

• Acquiring new customers and potential industrial or public partners (networking environment) and developing the company’s reputation.

• Working in an environment in which intellectual property rights are well managed. This facilitates patenting of the most promising results for SMEs and safeguards future commercial applications.

While these benefits are clear, it will be necessary to wait a few years for a complete understanding of the full impact for SMEs in terms of exploitable foreground (advancement of knowledge in processes or technologies and commercial exploitation of R&D results) and intellectual property rights (applications for patents, trademarks, registered designs, utility models, etc.). Projects must first be finalised (only about 30% of final reports had been submitted when this report was compiled) and results must be made public (e.g. patents on engineering novel enzymes, chip-scale mass spectrometer systems, treatment methods for the conversion of biomass). Market impacts are therefore also expected to be more visible within a few years.

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for more information on European research and innovation programme contact Bio-NCP for Brussels-based companies: Elena ANGIOLINI ean@impulse.irisnet.be