PRESS RELEASE
SEVEN EUROPEAN REGIONS LAUNCH ETTBio PROJECT TO IDENTIFY BEST PRACTICES FOR TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER IN BIOTECHNOLOGY

• Ten European partners will work together to boost innovation and economic development on a regional level

• The Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) is the only Spanish research centre that participates in this project.

Seven European regions are launching the ETTBio project, which aims to identify, exchange and transmit best practices for Effective Technology Transfer in Biotechnology in order to improve local and regional policies. This collective effort to improve transfer policies will help boost the creation of new companies, generate new jobs and lead to higher turnover, as well as increasing regional innovation and economic development.
The EU biotechnology sector is still a young industry and doesn’t have experience in technology transfer due to the changes in national intellectual property laws in recent years. Hence, specific regional policies and practices to boost technology transfer in biotechnology are thoroughly needed. Therefore, ETTBio – the recently started EU project on Effective Technology Transfer in BIOtechnology – will seek out common policies. 
ETTBio brings together ten partners from seven regions to tackle the potential of research institutes and universities as a source of innovation for regional economic development and international competitiveness. These partners are: the Dresden University of Technology (Lead Partner of ETTBio) and the city of Dresden from the Free State of Saxony, Germany; the Free University Brussels from the region of Brussels, Belgium; the Regional Development Agency of Ostrava from the Moravia-Silesia region, Czech Republic; the city of Tartu in Southern Estonia; the city of Warsaw and International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in the region of Warsaw, Poland; Biocat and the Center for Genomic Regulation, of Catalonia, Spain; and the Imperial College Business School of London, United Kingdom.
In the first stage, ETTBio will create a catalog of comparative assessment criteria for technology transfer in biotechnology in order to identify best practices with analysis reports of various specific cases to identify regional challenges. Based on the results obtained, suggestions for policies and implementation plans to be carried out in each region will be drafted before being presented to national and European political representatives and biotechnology stakeholders. The final objective is to design policies for technology transfer in biotechnology that will allow the regions to move forward in this field. 
ETTBio was set up in the context of the INTERREG IVC programme, which helps regions of Europe to share knowledge and transfer experience to improve regional policies. It will do so by identifying and transferring best practices in the participating regions, which are currently in different stages of development, in order to make regional policies and instruments more effective. The project has been co-financed by the European Union European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and made possible by the INTERREG IVC Programme. ETTBio, which has a budget of more than €2 millions for the 2012-2014 period, is one of the top priorities for the EU Innovation and Knowledge Economy program, as it contributes directly to the competitiveness of the region by fostering companies that can better take advantage of the innovative potential of universities and research institutes in order to develop new products and services. And, as a result, will help improve policies and instruments to boost the economic development of participating regions. 
 
For futher information, please contact Laia Cendrós, Centro de Regulación Genómica (CRG). Tel. +34 93 316 02 37.