Brokerage Events Joint Summit sets off new strategic co-operation projects

This event was an important stimulant forum for I&D partnerships at an European scale, for technology transmission, networking and business development. 

The event “Nano-Materials and µ-Technologies” was the first in our country in this emergent applied research area already known as the 21^st Century Industrial Revolution. All established contacts are expected to develop synergies and projects between the Research Centres that were present and the industrial companies in order to create a national nanotechnologies network. The purpose is to allow the reduction of the gap that our country faces comparing to other European countries in this research area.

The event had the pleasure of hearing speakers like Prof. Teresa Vieira from ICEMS about “What (Mechanical) Engineering can learn from Biological Materials”, Prof. Thierry Barriérre from Bésançon University with a presentation about “Highlights in Micro Technology – 3D Micro- Machining” and also Dr Volker Piotter from Karlsruhe Research Centre speaking about “μ-Replication Processes”.

A series of thematic workshops were also organized, which granted the presentation of project ideas that ended in various bilateral meetings. These meetings instigated ideas that foresee new national and European projects. This event gathered 77 participants from several institutions, enhancing the high participation of I&D centres that collected 42% of total event attendance, followed by universities with 31% and companies with a total of 27%. In the end, the result was optimistic: from the 50 bilateral meetings that took place during the afternoon, 17 project ideas came up. It is also worthy of reference the fact that many other meetings occurred in a more informal environment during the whole event.

Brokerage Event “Nano-Materials and µ-Technologies” was organized regarding Interreg IIIB Tecnoemprende Project in which OPEN participates and that aims to support the creation of Technological Companies in the European Southeast.