The 2012 Annual Meeting was held in Munich on January 16-17th. For CEBR Members, all slides and full reporting is available for download in the
DropBox here. For any members that have not yet activated DropBox access, please contact info@cebr.net.
The Annual Meeting was a productive 2 day conference, which will form the basis for CEBR planning and delivery in 2012. Sessions were summarised as follows:
Project synergies: identification, sharing and alignment of activities
Four projects were presented to discuss alignment potential in 2012:
BioX4Clusters - a new project which will build international cluster partnerships, with a focus on the US, Brazil and China. there is strong alignment potential between final ABCEurope activities and continuation of an Internationalisation SIG following September 2012 when ABCEurope ends. CEBR will also map global partnerships from member and publish these.
Interbio - a project in its last 6 months which has a focus on creating interdisciplinary research. There is a close overlap with other shared facilities activities and these will be aligned through the Shared facilities SIG.
ABCEurope Shared facilities was profiled with the last 6 months of activities until September 2012, a strong platform with which to align other facilities work.
ShareBiotech is another facilities project ending in 2012 and there are many services that it has offered that can be combined into the Shared Facilites work, particularly their work in professionalisation of facilities management.
Welcome to the new CEBR Steering Committee
This session welcomed the new Steering Committee, with 2 minute intros, followed by visions of how clusters should be evolving (and thus supported by CEBR activities). Cluster visions were presented by:
- Graeme Boyle - Nexxus and Health Science Scotland
- Nettie Buitelaar - Leiden BioScience Park
- Ernst Kloosterman - BioTech Norway
- Frederic Druck - Biowin
Discussion then turned to future activities for CEBR, for Steering Committee contemplation - with recommendations including advising the EC on changing the 'fire and forget' approach to projects, developing a cluster assessment tool for life sciences, becoming an educational role as a hub for expertise, services and knowledge.
Tools for supporting cluster development in Europe
This session reviewed funding tools that CEBR Members can use to support international partnerships with other clusters. It covered Framework, Regions of Knowledge, CIP and Interreg and has identified opportunities available for the next 12-14 months for project development.
The future of clusters and their management in lifesciences
This session was an intensive discussion period, addressing the 2 key questions:
- What will lifescience clusters look like in the future? We know the vision but what is the reality likely to be?
- What will future cluster management bring and how will it be funded?
The debate was lively, and while the first question needs further work, the second identified many characteristics of management for public and private financing that will help cluster managers plan activities and strategies for the future.
Exploitation from CEBR Member projects
This excellent session saw five presentations from members with activities ready for exploitation beyond their projects. the audience discussed cost, benefit and likely routes for exploitation. Presentations included:
- Tools of Science Europe - Stockholm Science City
- Entrepreneur Bootcamp - BioM
- Technology transfer and maturation - BioTOP
- European partnerships in Shanghai - LyonBiopole
These opportunities will be supported by CEBR into wider European uptake by clusters and partnerships for delivery.