BIJLAGE 1

Report meeting 8^th of February

TIMBER project

TIMBER

Translation of Innovations to the Market by Boosting Entrepreneurship and Regional economy

Present were: Lesley Anne Rubenstein (Thames Innovation Centre), Peter Ramaekers (Sirris), Carlos Perreira (CIEL/Lille Metropole), Mike White (University of Glasgow), Paul Althuis (Technical University of Delft), Wim Eijkelenburg (city of Delft), Gerrit Walstra (Haute Europe), Patrick Bergman (Haute Europe).

Notes during dinner:

• Entrepreneurial behavior is anarchic; breaking the rules could be an item;
• Connecting various worlds is needed in order to stimulate new initiatives (business, science, finance, public sector, entrepreneurs);
• Entrepreneurial behavior is related to conditioning; relation with inborn talents and can also be learned (link with education!).

1 Report of the meeting

Aachen was not present due to illness and holidays.

Everybody agreed that the three themes (innovative entrepreneurship, networking and matchmaking and facilitate entrepreneurship) are OK (see also original table in appendix in this document). This is the starting point for today’s meeting. It is also important to realize that we involve 4 groups of partners: innovation centres/incubators, universities and cities (as 3 categories of project partners) with the involvement of SME’s/business (as fourth partner to be involved during project activities). A general principle throughout the project is that there is a balance between joint activities (joint analysis, development of approaches) and locally implementation/piloting of these approaches (tailor made for local needs).

It is clear that the project matches very well with priority 1 in the NWE programme:

Priority 1 of the programme, with the overall aim to strengthen the innovative capacity and the knowledge-based economy of NWE and to support the mobilisation of regional and local potentials through transnational co-operation, matches fully with this project. The priority has 3 specific objectives:

• Objective 1.1: to promote greater entrepreneurship and facilitate the translation of innovations and knowledge into (marketable) products, processes and services that strengthen the competitiveness of NWE;
• Objective 1.2: to develop new and and strengthen existing growth clusters and SME networks by building on the endogenous potentials of NWE cities and regions;
• Objective 1.3: to use and improve territorial co-operation in order to strengthen the institutional and territorial framework for innovation and the transfer of knowledge within NWE

The project serves especially objective 1.1 but also contributes to objectives 1.2 and1.3.

The timeframe of the project is 3 years. 2008 will be lost with application and administrative procedures so the actual work will take place during the calendar years 2009, 2010 and 2011.

2 Results of workshops

Per theme, we used the metaplan method using cards to identify possibly activities from all partners in order to achieve the results formulated under each subtheme.

A general characteristic that indicates chronologically and logically the steps to be undertaken is:

1. Analysis/benchmarking;
2. Joint development of approaches/programmes etc.;
3. Local implementation/piloting;
4. Evaluation and dissemination.

WP 1: Innovative Entrepreneurship: capitalize the knowledge

General remarks:

• Culture is an important item related to entrepreneurial behavior and must be considered in the analysis, programme etc.;
• Entrepreneurship is related to various target groups, such as starters, existing SME’s and academics;

Result 1: a joint entrepreneur development programme focused on starters, existing SME’s and academics

Activities:

1. Analysis of best practices, existing ongoing programmes, business opportunities and approaches focused on development of entrepreneurship available in the partnership (also taking into account the role of culture);
2. Development of demand-driven training courses for entrepreneurs (with involvement of SME’s and high profile entrepreneurs but also universities, knowledge centres, banks, innovation centres etc.) focused on various target groups such as technostarters, academics and existing SME’s (topics amongst others technology strategy, IPR issues and business models, intervision of young entrepreneurs);
3. Setting up an exchange programme of lecturers that could (jointly) teach the programme;
4. Setting up a database to connect people from various disciplines together in order to create new matches and opportunities (this will be linked to the portal to be developed in WP2);
5. Implement the jointly developed programme both transnationally (international staff team teaching the programme for an international audience) and locally tailor made to specific local needs (during the project and beyond the project lifetime; exchange the experiences within the partnership).

Result 2: a high growth SME acceleration programme

Activities:

• Analysis of best practices in approaches and existing programmes focused on high growth SME’s around the partnership and identifying high growth issues and potential high growth companies in the partnership;
• Set up of an exchange programme within the partnership (partner staff and lecturers) and develop a joint approach for high growth SME acceleration;
• Set up a database of successful high growth entrepreneurs and connect this with a system of mentoring by successful entrepreneurs to mentor potential high growers;
• Connecting people with ideas, technologies, money (both locally and internationally);
• Make available venture capital for high potentials (to be done on regional level).

WP2: Networking and matchmaking: increase the playground

Result 3: Setting up a joint portal for entrepreneurship and networking (focused on ICT and biotechnology; in order to share knowledge and information and support match making)

Remarks:

• On all analysis related activity a benchmark method should be used (comparing different existing programmes, identifying what works and what not and why);
• Within the project, co-operation between incubators/innovation centres should take place.

Activities:

• Functional design for joint portal with all partners including providing linkages with existing local systems and wiki functionality for online networking and development;
• Mapping and analysis of partner regions in terms of profiles, strengths and weaknesses, complementaries etc and share this on the portal;
• Develop further contents for the portal;
• Implement the portal and make it available for a certain number of years (together with this a project website will be developed that could be part of the portal as such, serving both as an intranet and extranet for the project);
• Concrete networking activities such as connecting science and business ideas, developing EU projects (FP7 research).

Result 4: Model for regional networking (both business to business and business to knowledge and v.v.)

Activities:

• Analyse approaches and best practices for open innovation (also via internships/staff exchange) and business development in ICT, biotechnology, within partnership (example from UK: iCentrum Lites);
• Develop a model for networking based on best practices (including the governance issue of managing the capitalization process);
• Implement model regionally in partnership with involvement of SME s;
• Integration (clustering) of local regional support networks.

WP 3: Facilitate entrepreneurship: breaking the barriers

Result 5: Recommendations on improving the entrepreneurial climate

• Analyse existing approaches, also via exchange visits within partnership and asking desires of SME’s in terms of entrepreneurial approaches;
• Implement pilot activities in this field locally/regionally;
• Translate the programme to local needs and identify needed investments (investment agenda’s) for the future in order to accommodate change;

Result 6: Promotion and dissemination of project results

• Bundle all project results (all WP’s) and disseminate these in a report; visualize the outcomes with flowcharts/graphics, organize a final conference and be present on other relevant events in order to disseminate.

Link with programme objectives and overall objective

The three themes/work packages have to link with an overall project objective which in its turn links to (more abstract) programme objectives as formulated in the NWE programme. It is no problem to do this as the project fits very well in priority 1 of the programme. The overall objective of the project is to improve and increase knowledge capitalization and entrepreneurship from knowledge institutes and thus stimulate local/regional economic development. This will be done in tandems of knowledge institutes (preferably technical university) and cities (that focus on facilitating the process of valorisation and resulting economic development, creating pre-conditions, networking, spatial planning). In the Delft situation this will be done by the tandem of the municipality of Delft and the Technical University of Delft (including the incubator).

Knowledge capitalization in this project is defined as:

• Support to graduates and university staff to start up a business;
• Commercialisation of patents (for instance, licensing these to private companies);
• Development of preferred partnerships with industry and government;
• Research programmes together with private companies in public-private partnerships;
• Facility sharing with private companies;
• Accessibility of academic knowledge to SMEs;
• In-company training programmes for private and public organisations.