UTILE project develops online marketplace to successfully carry out EU-funded LS&H initiatives.

With a presentation to the EC management team of Health Directorate DG RTD, the UTILE project for developing an online marketplace for valorization of unfinished Life Sciences & Health projects has been formally launched.

The UTILE project started with a kick off meeting which was held in Brussels on the 23-24th of January 2017. At this meeting, project coordinator Mrs. Lieke Gerris (PNO Consultants) and project officer Elsa Papadopoulou (European Commission) formally launched the project. By making time for a presentation on this project the management team of the European Commission, chaired by Mr. Philippe Cupers (Acting Head of Unit, Strategy, Health Directorate, DG RTD, European Commission), shows great interest in the topic.

UTILE will develop an online tool to carry forward FP7 Health and Horizon2020 SC1 project results. The marketplace will actively bring together ‘innovation providers’ and ‘innovation developers’, combining technology push and market pull approaches. UTILE will develop a value adding strategy, thereby ensuring to 1) facilitate and catalyse innovation to effective valorisation and 2) develop a viable business case ensuring sustainability of this initiative. The key deliverables of the UTILE project are:

• the evaluation of all ended FP7 Health and H2020 SC1 projects;

• an online UTILE marketplace;

• an innovation and support business strategy;

• health sector related recommendations for the European Commission.

The UTILE project (the EU-health innovation place, a valorization platform for (FP7 Health and H2020 SC1) research results) is funded by the European Commission under the European H2020 Research and Innovation Program and coordinated by PNO Consultants.

Partners’ role in the UTILE project

• PNO Consultants B.V. (Netherlands): Coordinator and responsible for the project management of UTILE and plays an important role in managing the tech transfer evaluation process, the valorization/commercialization support strategy and the communication & dissemination activities.
• CiaoTech S.r.l. (Italy): Dissemination, communication and sustainability leader and strongly committed to carry out the activities for the definition of the overall functional and technical specifications, test and fine tuning of the platform
• Tech Transfer Summit Ltd (United Kingdom): International platform bringing together all stakeholder groups in the early stage biotechnology healthcare sector.
• Association of European Science & Technology Transfer Professionals (Netherlands): Pan-European association for professionals involved in knowledge transfer between universities and industry.
• Ascenion GmbH (Germany): Technology transfer organization to numerous research institutes with a specific focus on technology transfer within the life sciences.
• Karolinska Institutet Innovations AB (Sweden): Technology transfer organization of one of the world’s foremost medical universities and Sweden’s largest centre of medical academic research.
• Bergen Teknologioverforing AS (Norway): Technology transfer organization supporting ten research institutes with broad experience in business development within the medical sector.
• Medical Research Council Technology (United Kingdom): Technology transfer organization with extensive experience in translating academic research into commercial success. 
• Europe Unlimited S.A. (Belgium): Supporting platform for innovative entrepreneurship throughout Europe with broad experience in acting as link between R&D and business.
• Innovation Engineering SRL (Italy): Specialist in the design, development, and maintenance of advanced IT solutions supporting knowledge extraction on the web.
• Europroject Ood (Bulgaria): One of the leading consultancy companies in Bulgaria for European project setting-up and management with technical knowledge in life sciences.
• National Institutes of Health (USA): Technology transfer office of the NIH; the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research of the USA.