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E+ Methodology development for stimulating efficient international SME-cooperation within environmental technologies generated from science and technology parks within the EU, Australia and Canada INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC COOPERATION POLICY PROJECT REPORT
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Page 1: Methodology development for stimulating efficient ... · Methodology development for stimulating efficient international SME- cooperation within environmental technologies generated

E+

Methodology development for stimulating

efficient international SME-cooperation within environmental technologies

generated from science and technology parks within the EU, Australia and Canada

INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC COOPERATION POLICY PR

OJE

CT

REP

OR

T

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Interested in European research? RTD info is our quarterly magazine keeping you in touch with main developments (results, programmes, events, etc.). It is available in English, French and German. A free sample copy or free subscription can be obtained from:

European Commission Directorate-General for Research Information and Communication Unit B-1049 Brussels Fax (32-2) 29-58220 E-mail: [email protected] Internet: http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/rtdinfo/index_en.html EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Directorate-General for Research Directorate N.1 – International Scientific Cooperation - Policy

E-mail: [email protected]

Contact: Irmela Brach

European Commission Office [SDME 01/71] B-1049 Brussels

E-mail: [email protected] Fax: +32-2-296-98-24

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EUROPEAN COMMISSION

E+

Methodology development for stimulating efficient international SME- cooperation

within environmental technologies

generated from science and technology parks within the EU, Australia and Canada

Prepared by: Lahti Science and Business Park Ltd. Oy

co-ordinators: Ms. Annukka Havas and Mr. Mika Sulkinoja

In cooperation with: Environment Park S.P.A, Italia

Parc Technologique du Québec Métropolitain, Canada Stockholms Teknikhöjd AB, Sweden Technology Park, Western Australia

2005 Directorate-General for Research

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Europe Direct is a service to help you find answers to your questions about the European Union

New freephone number:

00 800 6 7 8 9 10 11 LEGAL NOTICE

Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use which might be made of the following information.

The views expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission. A great deal of additional information on the European Union is available on the Internet. It can be accessed through the Europa server (http://europa.eu.int). Brussels: Office for Publications - OIB, 2005 © European Communities, 2005 Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged. Printed in BELGIUM PRINTED ON WHITE CHLORINE-FREE PAPER

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Foreword

In publishing the Communications “Towards a European Research Area”, and “The International Dimension of the European Research Area”, the Commission stressed that working together, at Community level, for a common strategy in science and technology serving society also requires the improvement of framework conditions for research with partners from outside Europe.

As a support to this policy in International scientific Cooperation, Strategic Accompanying Measures, in major and societal-relevant research fields linked to Small and Medium Size Enterprises’ (SME) cooperation with Third Countries, represent significant tools for providing scientific, technological and social benefits from new knowledge as well as for identifying future research needs for the benefit of society and SMEs in particular. In this paper, one of the Strategic Accompanying Measures funded from 1999 to 2002 in the framework of the International Scientific Cooperation Programme (INCO) is presented with a view to facilitating identification and opportunities for further initiatives on SMEs’ boosting. The outcome of this measure has already encouraged further implications of Third Partners and stronger links between a variety of stakeholders involved in International Cooperation and its implications, contributing to the continuing development of the European Research Area and its International Dimension. This kind of action represents a significant tool for raising awareness of the importance and interest of international scientific cooperation to create new knowledge with Partners from outside Europe.

Louis BELLEMIN Acting Director for International Cooperation

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Table of Content

page

1. Summary

5

2. Main activities and organization of work

8

3. Results of the project

11

4. Challenges ahead

15

4.1. Keeping the network and its tools alive and kicking

15

4.2. Expanding the network through the International Association of Science and Business Parks (IASP)

16

5. Conclusion

17

6. Contact Information

18

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1. Summary

The E+ project was launched in order to develop, test and disseminate tools to strengthen environmental technology transfer and to promote the growth of SMEs. Another important objective was to establish a channel and network for environmental know-how from EU to Canada and Australia and visa versa.

The project set up a web-based solution – www.envimatch.com - and empowered the network to promote business development and contacts. The effectiveness E+ network and its tool www.envimatch.com rest upon the solid base of in-depth regional business know-how of science and technology parks, STPs, which have systematically and exhaustively identified the environmental expertise in their regions. The database contains now over 6000 companies.

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The project provides a platform where ideas, resulting from research and development, give rise to the establishment of innovation-based business enterprises. The database contains a large variety of companies, from single consultants to multinational companies, which offers a wide sphere of possibilities and provides growth, internationalization and effectiveness. It can be utilized for:

• forming business & project alliances (over 10 were formed already during the project)

• facilitating penetration into the international market through local partners • commercializing environmental research • analyzing competitiveness of companies and/or regions • searching special expertise for public procurement or competitive

biddings The E+ network and its tool www.envimatch.com were introduced at the International Association of Science Parks, IASP, World Conference in Bergamo in September 2004.

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Forty STPs were interested in joining the service. The Board of IASP welcomed the idea and invited the E+ network to draft a proposal about how IASP umbrella could provide a framework for further expansion of such activities as performed by the E+ network.

Work for widening the E+ network and gathering more company data continues in the future. In November 2004 a Chinese partner, Suzhou New District & Huqiu Association of Environmental Protection Industry joint the network. Earlier in 2004, Estonian Association of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises and EMI-ECO, connected Estonia to the system.

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2. Main activities and organization of

work

The project consortium’s work was led and supported by Lahti Science and Business Park Ltd. It managed the development process of the web-based environmental technology transfer database, introduced, analysed and tested various ideas and options for project consortium’s further discussion.

All partners contributed to the development process of the web-solution constructively and in an innovative way. They sought ideas from their regions and collected company information. Lahti Science and Business Park Ltd integrated the project with other relevant projects (e.g. Inno-Envi) which broadened the technical options. It also attached Estonia’s environmental enterprises into the database through another project called Finnish – Estonian Environmental Networking.

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All partners invested heavily in local marketing and dissemination and in the project’s single main marketing act: IASP World Conference in Bergamo, Italy, September 2004.

The IASP family welcomed the E+ initiative and its web-solution and invited the project consortium to further develop sectoral cooperation under the umbrella of IASP. The E+ network was given a task to prepare a business plan of www.envimatch.com for the IASP. This business plan will be presented to the board of IASP in January 2005. This work is currently in process.

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The multilateral co-operation focused mainly on developing the database, gathering and comparing the company data. Conference calls were found to be the most effective way of operating. Partners met on-line once a month; during the project period partners had altogether 30 joint “teletalks” (year 2002 10 teletalks, year 2003 15 teletalks and year 2004 5 teletalks). In addition partners met face-to-face 6 times.

• 8-9 January, 2002, Lahti Finland • 3-5 September, 2002, Québec Canada • 2-5 February, 2003, Perth Australia • 5-7 June, 2003 Turin Italy • 30 January 2004, Stockholm Sweden • 20-23 September 2004, Bergamo Italy

The project empowered also bilateral co-operation. The purpose was to develop more profound co-operation to promote technology transfer. Bilateral contacts were geared towards seeking synergies between companies and projects, results of which are numerous and very tangible. More information on bilateral cooperation is found in partners’ individual reports, available from the coordinator upon request (see chapter 6. contact information).

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3. Results of the project

The general objective was to develop, test and disseminate tools to strengthen environmental technology transfer and to promote growth of SMEs aiming at claiming their share of this strongly expanding field of business. Another important objective was to establish a channel and network for environmental know-how from EU to Canada and Australia and visa versa. Specific objectives, as described in the original project document, are marked in italics. To create and maintain an active, efficient and easily accessible virtual marketplace for innovative R&D-based environmental know-how, utilized by SME´s; The virtual marketplace was agreed to be implemented as a web-solution, core of which being business information from project partners’ regions. Majority of project consortium’s discussions during the whole implementation period related to defining the content, target groups, format, features and various technical alternatives of such a solution in order that a virtual market place could be established in a functionally effective manner. Perhaps the main challenge was to structure this rather unambiguous field of business in a globally understandable but at the same time not too general way. Surveys and analysis on corresponding existing databases (e.g. www.eco-web.com) and testing with companies located in the participating regions led the project consortium to base the structure of the database on the ‘OECD/Eurostat Environmental Goods and Services Industry manual classification’ (http://www1.oecd.org/publications/e-book/2201031E.pdf). The arguments in favour were:

• applicable in EU, Canada, Australia • forms solid foundation for further expansion • precise enough • contains information, which can directly be used to guide users

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Search at www.envimatch.com can be done according to countries, names of the companies or key words. Search results can be sorted by name and size of the company (sales, number of employees). After reaching agreement on the structure of the virtual market place, the work continued in each of the regions with collection and arrangement of company information. This work was exhaustive and very time consuming. As result, “critical mass” of the service – over 6000 companies, was created. As an unintended by-product, this screening activity resulted with deepened knowledge of STPs about their regional environmental know-how and promoted STPs interaction with companies. Parallel with structuring the content of the database, planning for a web-solution was ongoing. Since the project had not been harnessed with very large investment funds, the project consortium decided to join forces with the Finnish environmental network Green Net Finland and its Inno-Envi -project. Inno-Envi -project financed the technical construction of the database. E+ network was tightly involved in developing the database towards a well functioning tool with global relevance. The virtual marketplace is functional and can been found and evaluated at the internet address www.envimatch.com. By October 2004 it had registered already almost 2000 hits. To help SME´s to participate in developing global trade, based on the supply and demand for the environmental technologies; Envimatch.com directs STPs and SMEs to look at the business field in a commonly agreed and harmonized manner. It is an essential part of the infrastructure promoting SMEs to work together and search for synergistic effects in this constantly changing and specified field of business. Matching of the companies and other ways of utilizing the network and its tools in order to boost SMEs activities to penetrate into global markets were carried out simultaneously with collection of information and construction of the virtual market place. Regular development work provided the STPs with numerous opportunities to actively share information on individual companies’ interests and expertise. Systematic search of companies suitable for matching was implemented and resulted with approximately 10 mini-clusters or project consortiums some which after STPs withdrawal went on developing their aspirations independently. This is most likely only the top of the iceberg, since many companies may have found connections without leaning on the personal assistance of the STPs.

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In addition, the database has proven to be a very good source of information e.g. when:

• compiling surveys on environmental sector; • making comparative product analysis; • organising procurement tenders; • benchmarking innovations; • organising seminars and conferences.

Three examples of E+ matching success stories:

1. There has been a great need for the introduction of environmental technologies into the Asian region among the E+ network. In this work the Australian partner has promoted E + to Jennifer Coleman, Team Leader of the EU-China Environmental Management Cooperation Programme in Beijing, to Professor Dr Wu Jisong, Director-General of the Ministry of Water Resources and the Environment and to Madam Lin Wenyi, Chairperson of the 2008 Beijing Hi-Tech Olympics.

Partly with the help of the Australian partner E+ network has managed to get a new Chinese partner to this network. The new partner is Suzhou New District & Huqiu Association of Environmental Protection Industry in Shanghai. With this partnership E+ has a contact organisation in China. Their company data will be at www.envimatch.com within few months. The new Chinese partner insures the E+ network to plan joint and bilateral China activities. The Australian partner will e.g. visit Finland, Lahti in January 2005 in order to discuss with local companies about their Asian activities and needs.

The office of the Australian partner in Shenzhen, Southern China, next to Hong Kong, was officially opened in October 2004. E+ network will be able to use this to represent E + in a market of 120 million people.

2. The Italian partner, Envipark, has started a joint project with Swedish

operators in the hydrogen field. Co-operation is done with several companies (mainly SME). Also co-operation in the fuel processor field has been established between Italy and Sweden.

3. The Canadian partner and the Finnish partner made a systematic

analysis of their companies in 2003 in order to match companies and research institutes together. This matching activity is continuing and already succeeded to bring different companies, research institutes and laboratories together. E.g. Finnish company Finnenco Ltd. and Canadian company Biogenie have exchanged information and know-how in order to start join activities.

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To test and develop different methodologies for active promotion of the business matching of the SME´s between the participating regions, involving innovative environmental technologies; A thorough and independent analysis on applied methodology (database supported with professional environmental business network – regional hubs) was carried out during spring & summer 2004 (Annex 1). This evaluation included two parts: evaluation of the web-service and its development potential, and heuristic evaluation of its usability. The evaluation brought useful views to the whole project. It crystallised the focus and main target groups of the www.envimatch.com. Evaluator and the project consortium concluded that the service should more clearly focus to be a tool of the STP network but at the same time offer precise information directly to companies. Added value of the service would materialize at best through a combination of a semi-open and extensive database and personal face-to-face services of STPs professional personnel. In practice sharpening of the focus meant, for example, introducing public and member sections as well as modifying the registration and maintenance practices. The evaluation also revealed some usability errors, which were corrected. According to the evaluation, the future challenges are

• to achieve a scope and volume enough to accomplish credibility as a main service of its kind,

• to unify the principles of collecting information on enterprises, and • to add regional information and to bring out the role of science parks as

mediators between the service and enterprises in environmental sector. To identify and highlight environmental technology development areas in the participating regions and systematically offer this information to the rest of E+ group. At the beginning of the project, partners produced general descriptions of their regions’ business supply and potential. This information was disseminated through E+ network. The www.envimatch.com also contains links to respective regions and to the relevant web-sites. Notwithstanding these rather extensive activities, it was often noted, that this is an area requiring systematisation, constant attention and updating. Most of the project consortium’s energy and time was put into development of the service, and regionally tailored business information was treated as an “one-shot” investment. Participating regions were, however, actively highlighting and sharing their environmental technology potential at various occasions; most important of them were multilateral project meetings and IASP World Conference in Bergamo Italy in September 2004.

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4. Challenges ahead

The virtual market place - a tool for STPs, www.envimatch.com, its structure and content have been clearly proven to be a functional and a good and usable technology transfer platform. It assists SMEs through STPs in their various business development needs. It has been welcomed also by the IASP. In order to response to these challenges, the E+ network and technical development needs to be kept alive. Serious investment will be made in order to expand and seek resources for further development under the umbrella of IASP. The aim of the project consortium is to enlarge this network and further promote participation of especially Small and Medium Sized companies. Concerning further development, the next steps are to attract more STPs to the network of E+ and www.envimatch.com. This work has good possibilities to success since at the IASP World Conference in September 2004 in Italy there were forty interested STPs ready to join the database. Besides this, the need to gather marketing information and requirements about environmental legislation would be significant context to the database. 4.1. Keeping the network and its tools alive and kicking Extensive work related to the environmental business sectors in comparable and “match able” way were carried out during the project. This adds up to the quality of the database and know-how of the STPs. However, in order to keep the system alive and kicking, constant attention needs to be given to updating and managing the information. All partners are committed to contribute to this process. Updating the company information is a key activity to which also the new joining partners have to be committed from the beginning.

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Another important aspect is to keep the door open to system development. Such work could include:

• adopting and altering the features according to the feedback sought from IASP network (e.g. enabling STPs to follow sectoral development: number of companies in various sub-fields, development of turnover figures etc.)

• increasing the intelligence of the search options of the system • connecting the information with performance, business,

managements standards (e.g. ISO, EMAS etc.) • introducing e-commerce elements into the system • decentralising data management totally by implementing linked

interactive databases • etc.

4.2. Expanding the network through the International Association of Science Parks (IASP) As mentioned earlier the E+ project and www.envimatch.com were introduced at the IASP World Conference, Bergamo, Italy, September 2004. Forty STPs were interested in joining the network. It was clearly demonstrated that demand for these kinds of forerunner activities exists. This notion is supported by the process which is ongoing within the IASP itself: it is tailoring its functions according to different lines of business. Therefore, its board asked the E+ network to introduce environmental technology as a pilot line of activity, which would serve as an example to other fields. In order to respond to this request, the E+ network has drafted a business plan presented for the IASP board in January 2005. An important element of this emerging business plan is the coverage of the network: network’s and its instrument’s quality and benefits naturally increase with the number of members.

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5. Conclusion

The project, as a first of its kind clearly demonstrated that demand for these kinds of forerunner activities exists. It has been shown efficient and demand has already been received from Asia and others. Although no longer funded by the European Commission, the project should be self-sustained by now and continue its work in the future.

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6. Contacts

E+ Project

Methodology development for stimulating efficient international SME- cooperation within environmental technologies,

generated from science and technology parks within the EU, Australia and Canada

Contract No. ICA5-CT-2001-50001

Coordinator of the project: Neopoli Oy, Lahti (FI)

Partners: Stockholm Teknikhoejd AB, Stockholm (SE) Environment Park SPA, Torino (IT) Alès Myriapolis Alès (FR) Nova Scotia Dept. Of Environment, Halifax (CA) Technology Park Western Australia Bently (AU)

CONTACT POINT

Annukka HAVAS & Mika SULKINOJA [email protected]

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European Commission E+ - Methodology development for stimulating efficient international SME-cooperation within environmental technologies, generated from science and technology parks within EU, Australia and Canada 2005 —20 pp. — [format 21.0 x 29.7] cm

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Printed byOIB

The E+ project was launched in order to develop, test and disseminate tools to strengthen environmental technology transfer and to promote the growth of SMEs. The project provides a platform where ideas, resulting from research and development, give rise to the establishment of innovation-based business enterprises. The established database contains a large variety of companies, from single consultants to multinational companies, offering a wide sphere of possibilities and provides growth, internationalization and effectiveness. Work for widening the E+ network and gathering more company data continues in the future.