On the 25th of July 2023, at the headquarters of INCDSB Bucharest, the event “Promoting Knowledge Transfer and Competitive Innovation to Small and Medium Enterprises” was organized. This event marked the completion of the project “Innovative Methods for Valorizing Natural Resources and Improving Nutritional Efficiency of Phytoproducts – Contributions to the Competitiveness of Small and Medium Enterprises (FITOCOMP)” (P40-373), co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the 2014-2020 Operational Competitiveness Program.
Representatives of SMEs from the agri-food industry, the phytopharmaceutical preparations and nutritional supplements industry, and SMEs interested in producing equipment for processing vegetable residues/by-products were brought together. These SMEs were the beneficiary of grants financed throughout the FITOCOMP project’s implementation in partnership with the institute. Grants envisaged knowledge/technological transfer activities, personnel training, access to R&D facilities, consultancy, and customized services to create new products and develop new technologies. At the meeting, representatives from other partner SMEs, representatives of Technology Transfer Centers, consultancy firms, and representatives from the Intermediate Body – the Ministry of Research, Innovation, and Digitalization.
This event marked the completion of a series of 8 workshops held during the project’s implementation, which aimed to present the FITOCOMP portfolio and to identify and assess the technology transfer needs in the specific niche research areas of the project.
The project’s objectives were as follows:
- Enhancing the economic efficiency of private companies through the partnership-based development of innovative solutions to obtain added value products and to innovate the technological processes capitalizing the natural resources such as plants, fruits, biomass, and their by-products.
- Increasing the enterprises’ access to the vast expertise of INCDSB in bioanalysis.
- Establishing new competence sources by knowledge transfer from the R&D/academic environment to industry/stakeholders.
The results achieved at the end of the FITOCOMP implementation are promising, fulfilling the proposed key-performance indicator, as established during the project planning phase:
- 7 contracts for industrial research and/or experimental development were implemented in partnership with SMEs, along with 3 contracts for enterprises’ research, development, and innovation services. These efforts led to the development of 5 new products (phytopharmaceuticals, functional beverages, bio-printed cosmetic patches based on hyaluronic acid-collagen and plant extracts, equipment based on laser technology for the extraction and concentration of biologically active compounds, equipment for extraction based on cavitation phenomena); patent applications, Scientific papers in journals with high impact factors.
- A portfolio of transferable methods, technologies, and protocols: FITOCOMP Package for capitalizing natural resources and improving the nutritional efficiency of phytoproducts; FITOCOMP Package for products from the wine industry and wine by-products; FITOCOMP Package for products based on medicinal plants, herbs, and beehive products.
- Licensing of 3 technologies
- An online platform FITO-PLAT facilitates connections among stakeholders – representatives of SMEs, Transfer Centers, technology brokers, and authorities.
- Twelve specialized researchers in Knowledge/Technology Transfer and innovation brokerage who gained expertise through training courses and on-the-job experience during project implementation. They provided assistance and consultancy to partner SMEs.