Launched at the beginning of 2005, BIOCOP project is bringing together research expertise on new techniques to screen a variety of food products containing multiple toxic substances, including pesticides, heavy metals, toxins and drugs. This Integrated Project is funded by the European Commission with ten million euro under the “Food quality and safety” thematic area of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6). This five year project, coordinated by Professor Chris Elliott from the Veterinary Sciences Division of Queens University, Belfast, involves 23 partners from universities, research centres, regulatory agencies and 10 SMEs, from 15 European countries, as well as Canada.
Continue reading ‘BIOCOP: A broad and ambitious Integrated Project between universities and SMEs under the Sixth Framework Programme’
Archive for the 'Case studies' CategoryPage 3 of 5
Europe developed an early lead in mobile telephony, in large part because the major players agreed on the GSM communications standard. Using one common standard made it easy for operators to share network infrastructure, and ensured that clients could easily roam from network to network, as well as from country to country.
In a similar manner, the FP6-funded SEMOPS project – led by a mostly Hungarian consortium of companies - has created an infrastructure for making payments with a mobile telephone, which they see as the first step toward an era of ubiquitous m-commerce.
A major barrier to the wider adoption of mobile payments is the lack of a cheap, secure and universally applicable payment infrastructure. Mobile payment systems that exist today are limited and proprietary solutions. Such systems are relatively expensive to build, and their application is limited to a single purpose. For example, in many cities, motorists may now pay their parking meters with a mobile telephone, however these solutions cannot be used at the flower shop round the corner. Continue reading ‘Semops: Launching an era of mobile payments’
One of our goals at nowEurope is to profile innovative new companies and technologies in Central Europe. Hydro-Go is a small Hungarian company with a very big potential.
In an age of high energy prices and shrinking oil reserves, hydrogen holds out the promise of a cheap, clean and limitless supply of energy. Hydrogen is all around us in the form of water. The only hitch is how to extract that fuel in a cost effective manner.
Hydro-Go has developed a solution that extracts a higher amount of hydrogen than any other known solution, and the company is looking for a partner to take this technology to the market.
The invention is an advanced hydrolysis system, which is different from any other known hydrolysis systems. The compact size hydrolyzing reactor is built from conventional materials and uses off-the-shelf components and technology to separate oxygen and hydrogen from distilled water. It uses different excitation techniques (ultrasound, microwave, plasma) gradually exciting the molecules of water in several phases.
The estimated energy balance is positive - from 200% to as high as 400%. The reaction is sustainable and reproducible and while there are theories, the company admits they don’t know exactly how or why this works. Scientific examinations are currently being carried out by Hungarian and international institutions.
The company is seeking patent protection for this technology and is interested in talking to partners who can help take this to market. I will be happy to put interested parties in contact with the company principles. Email me at steve AT noweurope DOT com
Success of Skype, a peer-to-peer telephony network, which was sold recently to eBay for roughtly 3,2 billion USD, marks clearly the potential of Estonian developers in creating world class products. In 2002, starting with mere 10 employees, the company has meanwhile grown to more than 100 employees internationally, three thirds of them located in Estonia. Pradoxically, there are few people who know that almost entire technical development of the company is lead from Tallinn.
For a small country, with limited market size and resources, participation in collaborative development projects is one feasible way of gaining critical mass. This has been true for Skype as well ? the vision comes from Scandinavia, sales are done from London, and technology development in Estonia. For these purposes, interest towards partnering on EU scales is remarkably high amongst our companies. EU funded programmes consitute quite a good possiblity for entering international networks, serving as a source for additional funding as well as a source for complementing partners and future customers.
Archimedes Foundation, an organisation nominated as official National Contant Point for Framework Programme 6 and a number of other EU programmes such as eTen, eContent+, EUREKA, COST etc, serves to assist local companies and RTD centres in networking with foreign partners. Apart of that, consultations on proposal preparation are provided and international partner searches pursued. Archimedes Foundation acts also as an Innovation Relay Centre, supporting SMEs with technology transfer. More information on the organisation can be found at www.irc.ee.
Thus, once partners from Estonia are needed, you are most welcome to contact our people from Archimedes Foundation, who will kindly help you in identifying proper and credible partner for your project. In case you are interested in Estonia in general or specifically in ICT sector developments, more information can be found at www.esis.ee.
Given, in some countries, difficulties faced by SMEs to their participation in European projects, the question whether European mechanisms are adapted or not to SMEs is more and more frequent.
One answer consists of saying that FP regulations are too complicated or that EC procedures are too lengthy and bureaucratic. Besides, SMEs often had bad experiences from previous projects given EC requirements. On SMEs’ activities’ side, it is often said that companies are too active in areas, which are not covered by FP projects or that companies do not have the capacity to prepare project proposals.
Another type of answer can be given, based on companies’ competitiveness and on a better understanding of FP projects’ objectives.
Continue reading ‘Are current European mechanisms adapted to SMEs?’
If you ask French specialists in Innovation issues whether results of SMEs’ participation in FP programmes are satisfactory, the answer is clearly no.
Why is that so?
Despite an active participation of French SMEs in FP programmes (at the second rank in the EU 25 after Germany), they get only 9% of FP programmes? funding that benefits to France. This figure must be compared to a general objective set at a 15% rate and 14% for German SMEs.
Continue reading ‘Insight into French SMEs’ participation in European FP Programmes’
HYDEKO KV is Slovak SME specialized in the geological, geochemical, hydrogeological and hydrochemical investigations including evaluation of geological factors of the environment. In the field of hydrogeology, HYDEKO - KV holds expertise in construction of hydrogeological and hydrogeochemical maps, complex evaluation of hydrogeological regions, and investigations of regional and local resources of water supply. In the field of geochemistry, HYDEKO - KV is experienced in regional and thematic geochemical mapping and in monitoring of organic matter and contaminants. Company has actively participated as partner in several international projects - one of the most interesting project was EU project GEOWATERS (http://www.geowaters.com/) - Integrated geophysical techniques for surveying and quantifying potentially polluted sediments in European waterways. This project was financed by the 5.FWP. The Slovak key person for this project was Director of the HYDEKO KV - Dr.Kamil Vrana.
Continue reading ‘Slovak SME participation in the project GEOWATERS’
ROVIMA SA, a French SME specialised in paint manufacture was involved, along with 7 other partners from 6 European countries overall, in a FP5 Craft Project aiming at developing a new type of paint made of enzymes based on antifouling agents. This material is used in marine coatings for ships and other offshore constructions and gives ships and offshore constructions an improved aero-dynamism while being less toxic for the environment.
This project was carried out in the framework of the specific research and technological development “Competitive and Sustainable Growth”.
This project, initiated by the industry, can be considered as very successful as the underlying concept was to gather - ex-ante ? innovative ideas coming from several European SMEs. In other words, this project was based on clustering in a view to build European partnerships.
Thanks to a strong networking effort, bringing together SMEs which worked in their specific area but on similar projects targeting niche markets application processes this project was made possible.
Concerning in particular ROVIMA’s involvement, the company has developed over the years important research activities in order to elaborate innovative products and new applications. It not only takes part in European projects but also collaborates with French universities and research laboratories of big French companies.
Countries involved in the Project: Denmark (Co-ordinator), France, Portugal, UK, Greece, Netherlands.
For more information: Cordis
Enterprise Investors, the largest and oldest private equity firm in the Central and Eastern Europe with offices in Warszaw, Bucharest and New York, and Intel Capital, Intel’s venture investment fund having in its portfolio also Centrum (the Czech web portal Nr. 2), have acquired 65 % stake in Grisoft, Brno based security software company, for $52 million from current owners Benson Oak Capital.
Founded in 1991, Grisoft is a leading global provider of antivirus solutions with offices also in the US. The product line includes the AVG antivirus programme and firewall supporting all major operating systems and platforms with over 25 million users.
Next to Grisoft there is a bunch of several more successful Czech security software companies with their products collecting the prestigious awards - for example Kerio Technologies (with offices in California and Cambridge and its development team in Pilsen) contracted by US Air Force, Prague based Alwil or Brno based AEC and Trusted Network Solutions.
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