Euroscience Open Forum 2012

Although over 50% of university graduates in Europe are female, the number of start-ups from university through female entrepreneurs remains just somewhere between 0 and 15 %. The reasons for this are manifold and will be explored during the course of the workshop. The workshop will also examine the myths concerning female entrepreneurship and will reveal facts that will offer encouragement to young female scientists. A key objective of the workshop is to demonstrate to female scientists how they can ensure that their research results will not end up on shelves but instead are brought through the process of commercialisation. Finally, the workshop will reinforce the argument that missing out on female entrepreneurs from science means missing out on innovation, competitiveness, growth and jobs.

Innovative Entrepreneurship is at the intersection of innovation and entrepreneurship and is a new policy direction that is more than the sum of its parts. “Digital Innovation & Entrepreneurship – What Next” covers both the establishment of start-ups based on the development and transfer of new digital technologies and the impact on established firms of the application of existing digitally-based knowledge and know-how.

The audience will examine how digital innovation and entrepreneurship will contribute to growth now and in the future and investigate the different types of roles, opportunities and collaborations that will occur. They will explore the diversity of digital entrepreneurs, e.g. teenage entrepreneurs, digital artisans, native digital development companies, digital services agencies and traditional entrepreneurs who transform their businesses by embracing digital technology. Participants will debate how digital technologies will enable tiny creative operations to produce innovations and sell services and products to remote niche markets. They will discuss and contribute answers to the question: “How can we better understand the nature of entrepreneurship in the digital economy?”

The audience will benefit from being actively involved in helping to position digital entrepreneurship within the context of Ireland’s National Digital Strategy and Innovative Entrepreneurship Agendas.

Publicly funded research institutions have broad mandates.  The Higher Education sector, in particular, is being asked to deliver education, research and now innovation.  Will the sector only truly succeed in generating commercial opportunities through clever partnerships?

A panel of speakers will discuss issues around partnerships with business, funding agencies and governments.  Examples of public-private partnerships which have generated impact will be presented.

The Science to Business Programme at ESOF 2012 provides an unique opportunity for participants to showcase creative excellence and ground breaking innovation at the 'Invention Convention', the first of its kind at such a conference. It is a competitive opportunity for 15 people (professionals, innovators, entrepreneurs, Masters students, PhD candidates or Post Docs) to stand on a platform and pitch their innovation in 3 minutes to a panel of distinguished judges comprising of experts from both the academic and business sectors.

The objective of this session is to give delegates with wonderfully creative minds from across the world the opportunity to showcase their innovation and for their work to be recognised as a ground breaking innovation at Europe’s largest General Science conference. There are significant prizes available to the winners and outside of the session itself, the 15 finalists will get an opportunity to meet with a select group of successful entrepreneurs and business angels to discuss ways of commercialising their innovation. This will not only provide a platform for future mentoring but it will also introduce innovators to potential investors.

How can research contribute to Open Innovation in business development?

The session gives an overview of Open Innovation with examples introduced by two main speakers.

 A case study from the insurance industry will be presented. The industry is experiencing increased costs caused by increasingly unstable weather conditions, flooding and erosion. Contact with researchers resulted in a unique collaboration between insurance and research sectors using advanced climate modeling. A user-friendly online tool is being developed which home owners, companies and municipalities can make use of in order to secure homes and plan for future building sites. The project is hosted by NORD-STAR, a Nordic Centre of Excellence on strategic adaptation research, and part of the Nordic Top-level Research Initiative, the largest research and innovation initiative to date within the framework of the Nordic collaboration.

A round table discussion with introductory speakers, invited participants and the audience will address various aspects of open innovation.

Workshop theme: "A 90 minutes guide on everything you should consider when starting a business"

To stay competitive globally and improve the quality of life of the citizens, Europe needs rapidly to improve the capacity to turn research into new and better products and services. We need to foster a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship and support the transfer on knowledge and skills. 

This workshop will build on the philosophy of a Master Class, having talented pupils being coached by experienced Masters in front of an audience. Here, two successful entrepreneurs acting as Masters will coach four Marie Curie grantees having exciting research results for which they want to explore business opportunities.

On stage, "pupils" will present their story and issues they want to get feedback on. This could include "how to attract venture capitalists; how should I proceed to bring my idea to the market" or "how do I best market my product?" The Masters will share their experiences and give concrete advice aiming at improving the business opportunities.

The audience will be encouraged to actively intervene with questions. After the workshop each participant will leave with new knowledge how to start and develop business, an increased network and, maybe most important, the courage to continue exploring possibilities to bring research to market!

The aim of this workshop is to examine the manner in which SMEs access funding through EU projects, and the lessons that can be learned by support agencies and owner-managers. The workshop will feature a range of discussions which will include an exploration of current and future funding opportunities for SMEs from an EC perspective, potential strategies from a support agency perspective (with Ireland used as a reference point), and lessons learned from an SME owner-manager who will discuss his experiences from a practitioner perspective. The workshop will incorporate a holistic view of engaging with EC funding opportunities and will conclude with a talk about Horizon 2020.

A contract from a lead customer is one of the most valuable assets that an innovative company can possess. It significantly reduces the risks involved in rolling out a new product or service. It makes the company much more attractive for a prospective investor.

Public authorities are extremely valuable as lead customers. Project Scales can be very significant, and a public organisation can offer great opportunities for product or service development. An innovative solution supplied to a lead public customer can go on to become a product in global demand, securing a company's long term future. The US experience is significant in this respect

Public procurement of innovative solutions is now a mainstream European Union policy. In the Horizon 2020 strategy, new legal frameworks and funding programmes will create valuable opportunities. However, innovative procurement solutions are already growing fast under existing rules. This is the right time for innovative companies to move into the public market.

This interactive workshop will bring together policy makers, research organisations, public buyers and suppliers to explain current and future programmes, and present case studies of successful customers. It will be an "unmissable" session for researchers and companies who want to turbo charge their innovations through to market.

This session will present four landmark cases of innovation capacity building drawn from the EU, the Russian Federation, and the US. Senior leaders from these initiatives will describe their strategies, experience and results to date.  Attendees will also have the opportunity to ask questions and interact informally with the participants from these key initiatives to share learning and explore opportunities.

The participants come from

• The Business, Innovation and Technology (BIT) Research Centre of Aalto University - a significant driver of innovation in Finland, already an innovation leader in the EU.
• Science Foundation Ireland - a paradigm setter in creating innovation systems. The model employed in Ireland has been repeated in Arizona.
• The San Diego CONNECT program - an early and very successful innovation flagship development in the US.

The session will culminate in the announcement of plans and opportunities in Russia following the establishment of the largest and most ambitious innovation project on continental Europe for many years: the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology which is being established in collaboration with MIT.

After the formal session, there is an opportunity for further discussions with the participants.

Astronomy is big business. South Africa, allied with the African Union and eight other African countries, is making major investments in radio astronomy in partnership with the European scientific community and industry. This includes a bid to host the world’s most powerful radio telescope - an instrument 50-100 times more sensitive and 10,000 times faster than any radio imaging telescope ever built. More than 70 institutes in 20 countries, together with industry partners such as Intel, Nokia, Siemens, Microsoft and Cisco are participating in the scientific and technical design. South Africa has already constructed a pathfinder telescope and with African partners are developing plans for an African VLBI Network. This science to business project is truly of transformational scientific significance. The design, construction and operation of the telescope will have a potentially global impact on skills development in science, engineering and associated industries around the world. This interactive round table complements the EU-Africa Partnership Programme with demonstrable science to business.

It will bring together top researchers, business leaders and policy-makers to spotlight the latest advances and opportunities in world-leading science instrumentation. Via a flexible format of brief presentations led by an experienced moderator with ample space for questions, answers and reactions, speakers will shed new light on just what goes into making radio telescopes from the factory floor to the field. The outcome will be a sharpened understanding of what it means for diverse enterprises and regions. In particular, technology development in antennas, fibre networks, signal processing, and software and computing, with spin-off innovations in these areas set to benefit other systems that process large volumes of data, will be spotlighted. The session will be highly visual with a focus on tech transfer, business and recruitment opportunities. It will specifically give valuable insights into the dynamics of strategic international business partnerships such as Africa and Europe.

The instruments of the IPR system – e.g., patents, copyrights, trademarks or designs – have become important building blocks for creating business models. The management of IPRs and their integration into a business strategy can make the difference between failure and success stories like Apple or Google. An innovation-friendly IPR environment – in terms of effective IP laws, adequate support services for firms and, ultimately, firms “fit” in IPR – is, hence, a necessity in Europe. 
Several changes in the European IPR system are being implemented in this context. In particular, this concerns the path towards a unitary patent, reform in the copyright system, improved IP enforcement and better services for entrepreneurs to manage IP. With presentations of studies executed for the Scientific Technology Option Assessment Board (STOA) of the European Parliament, this workshop presents the path towards the unitary patent, the fight against counterfeiting/piracy orreforms in the European copyright system. Significant advancements in services like automatic machine translation of foreign language patent documents and in educational programmes will be outlined by an EPO speaker. A speaker from IBM will elaborate on IPR challenges from a practitioner´s point of view. An interactive discussion with the audience after the presentations highlights implications for entrepreneurs.

The Open Innovation paradigm triggers new challenges and opportunities for the researchindustry.Current trends characterising the knowledge economy (namely, inter alia, the globalisation ofresearch, competitive pressure which reduce the companies' commitment to long-term andbasic research; growing convergence of technologies) call for an evolution of the role playedby research institutions: from a role focused on education and creation of public domainscientific results to a "knowledge hub" role. In particular, the need to deepen the relationshipwith industry requires research institutions to engage more in the development of "jointknowledge" (or co-creation of knowledge) with industry (and relevant stakeholders) viacollaborating to establish, develop and manage "knowledge platforms", in order to attract,share and recombine the various contributions coming from the research, industrial andsocietal ecosystem.The round table will be opened by an introduction on Open Innovation and its relevance forthe business and research world. The discussion will investigate the expectations industryhas on the role PROs (Public Research Organisations) and Universities should play withinthe new emerging context. Furthermore, room will be devoted to discussing about the main"exogenous" hurdles (e.g. structural, cultural, institutional, regulatory…) that researchinstitutions have to overcome in Europe in order to speed up this transition and how researchinstitutions should concretely engage in shaping their business model in order to improve therelationship with industry. The round table will be closed by a practical presentation onconcrete examples of "open innovation" business models adopted by research institutions in Europe.

In the current economic environment, securing investment finance is more challenging than ever.  It is essential that nascent and existing entrepreneurs from a scientific background fully understand investment models and how to optimise their chances of investment success. 

This session provides entrepreneurs or would-be entrepreneurs with a taste of what it is like in the real world to secure investment funding.  An international panel of investors will discuss different financing options available to entrepreneurs and share their views on what they are looking for in new business ideas.  Three companies at different stages of the development lifecycle will present business propositions and the investors will share with the audience their process of evaluating each proposition.  

The audience are invited to get involved through an interactive voting approach, evaluating business propositions from an investor’s perspective and voting for their preferred investment opportunity.  

If you would like to directly benefit from this session and secure feedback from the international panel of investors on your business proposition, we invite you to submit an investment idea for evaluation before 14th June 2012.  For more information, please email us directly at info@dbic.ie .

This session advances thought leadership in entrepreneurship education and proposes a new model of "action-based, entrepreneurship education" as the way forward for SET (Science, Engineering, Technology) students.

Led by the Innovation Academy UCD, this highly-interactive session brings together a multi-disciplinary team of academics and practitioners, from across Europe, to identify, debate and develop best-practice in entrepreneurship education for SET students. Speakers include representatives from: Innovation Academy UCD; UCD College of Engineering & Architecture; TU Delft; Lancaster University (UK); KARIM Network (Interreg IVB NWE); Paris Region Innovation Centre (PRICE); CAL4INO

During this session speakers and delegates will:

• Deconstruct conventional definitions of entrepreneurial activity and education, focusing on the potential of innovative, action-based learning models to promote students’ ability to think and act entrepreneurially. This approach will be demonstrated through delegate participation in a team-based, action-learning challenge.
• Identify best-practice in entrepreneurship education, drawing on the practices of leading European institutions, from undergraduate to PhD level. The emphasis is on innovative methods, student feedback and the associated entrepreneurial activities and outputs.
• Consider the challenges of action-based, entrepreneurial education models, focusing particularly on localized delivery/context, metrics and relevance to industry employers, particularly SME’s. Delegate participation via a round table discussion is invited with a particular emphasis on identifying solutions.

Universities have embraced their role in strengthening the regional economy. Breaking new ground in policy, strategy and operations, they are confronted with new challenges. One of them is how to measure, improve and communicate their economic impact. This is particularly relevant to the technology transfer agenda.

Led by Invent - Dublin City University’s Technology Transfer Office, this highly interactive session brings together world leaders in the area of innovation, entrepreneurship and commercialisation to give their unique perspectives on how universities can increase the number of spin-out companies and licensing deals.

During this session the speakers will explore the following issues:

• What are the conditions that facilitate successful technology transfer and how can we increase activity levels in this area?
• How do universities conduct the necessary de-risking (both financial and technological) to drive value in their start-ups until they can either thrive on their own or are investment ready?
• How can we encourage researchers to critically examine the technologies they are developing and to assess their commercial potential?
• How do we incentivise researchers to be part of a team which takes a new technology to the marketplace?
• How do we open the dialogue with industry to develop collaborative research projects resulting in commercially exploitable technologies?
• In order to encourage more spin-outs and licensing arrangements, is there too much focus on metrics and is there a quality issue to be addressed?
• What role must technology transfer office now play given the complexity of the technologies and the needs of the marketplace?
• How do we develop hubs and clusters for innovation that draw in both intellectual property and the resources to exploit new technologies.

How did a scientist with $10,000 build a multi-billion dollar company? How did this private company, with no outside investors, rise to become no. 7 in the world of animal health? What does the future hold for Alltech as it heads for a target of $4 billion in sales?

Listen to the story of Dr. Pearse Lyons, founder and president of Alltech, a global animal health company that employs more than 2,800 people and conducts business in 128 countries throughout the world.  Born in Dundalk, he received his bachelor’s degree from University College Dublin, Ireland and obtained his master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of Birmingham, England. He later worked as a biochemist for Irish Distillers before founding Alltech in 1980.

Today  Dr. Lyons is widely recognised as an entrepreneur and innovative industry leader in both biotechnology and agriculture. His scientific expertise, combined with an acute business sense, helped revolutionise the animal feed industry through the introduction of yeast-based ingredients to feed. Now, as the company enters its fourth decade of business, its solid base will enable it to extend products, core values and nutritional solutions to an ever-expanding market. At the same time, its commitment to the primacy of science, a commitment responsible for the company’s success, remains steadfast.

Session Chair: Prof. Gerry Boyle, Director, Teagasc