European Biotechnology and the new Member States
Brussels 25-26 November, 2004
UNICE Conference Centre (Salle Adenauer)
Avenue Cortenbergh 168
Summary and conclusions of meeting
Introduction:
Biotechnology is one of the key technologies that has emerged in the last decades. By creating a knowledge based bio-economy, the new knowledge of life sciences will provide a corner-stone of the Lisbon goal. Biotechnology offers totally novel ways to treat and prevent disease, enable more sustainable agriculture providing healthy and nutritional food and provides exciting new opportunities in the energy and manufacturing sectors by using biomass as a renewable source of energy and materials.
Europe has a Biotechnology strategy in place that should be explained to the New Member States, but the new Members also have a role in the implementation, and in adapting the strategy to meet their specific needs.
Contents and purpose of the meeting:
As a first step the European Commission Research and Enterprise Directorates' General and EuropaBio, organised a one and a half-day workshop on "European Biotech Strategy and the New Member States" on November 25th and 26th 2004. The meeting took place at the UNICE Conference Centre, Avenue Cortenbergh 168, Brussels.
EuropaBio, the European Association for
Bioindustries, organised a morning session on 25th November 2004 at EuropaBio,
6, Avenue de l’Armée, 1040 Brussels.
The industry event preceded
the one and a half-day workshop organised in co-operation with the European
Commission. The participants of this morning session were industry
representatives from the new Member States, national associations’
representatives from western and eastern Europe as well as agencies responsible
for innovation and investment.
Participants included representatives of the New Member States governments, representatives of the biotech research and industry communities, agencies responsible for innovation, research and development, European Investment Bank/European Investment Fund representatives, European Commission (DG Research/DG Enterprise/DG Regio/DG Agri), as well as biocluster representatives (e.g. Scanbalt )
The program of the two-day meeting included sessions on:
· Biotech strategy – overall concept and action plan
· Biotech strategy – progress report
· The potential of biotech in the New Member States
· Benchmarking of Biotech policy study
· Denmark, UK and The Netherlands, examples of national biotech strategies
· Financing instruments of the European Investment Bank( EIB)
· Regional Policy and structural funds
· Examples and experiences of national biotech associations in the New Member States
· Importance of coordination between national biotech associations and bioregions at European level
Also, three specific workshops on each of the Technology Platforms (green, white and red) were organized. The objective of these three workshops was to create ownership of the vision of the technological platforms.
The main goals of this meeting were to inform the New Member States about the European Strategy for Life Sciences and biotechnology launched by the Commission in 2002, and to discuss the progress of the implementation of its action plan, in particular in the areas of research, innovation and finance.
Feedback from participants:
According to the participants of the meeting the one and a half-day workshop gave them a good overview on all of the topics presented. Participants expressed their willingness to inform their national politicians of the Life Sciences and Biotechnology – A strategy for Europe, with a 30 point action plan for the development of biotechnology in Europe and the progress report on the implementation of its action plan.
The sessions on the national biotech strategies and the technology platforms were the most appreciated by the participants. They expressed their readiness to learn more about the structure/concept and the functioning/purpose of the technology platforms as well as the role they should play in joining these platforms. As a result the New Member States’ representatives present at the meeting suggested that the European Commission organise a workshop on the technology platform issue to help them better understand what a platform really is and how the New Member States could contribute to the Strategic Research Agenda through establishing or participating in platforms.
The presentations on the national biotech strategy, given by Anna Cummins (UK), Gunvor Nielsen (DK) and Menno Horning (NL) stressed the fact that it is crucial to bring together all the main stakeholders (government, academia, industry, etc) and have the relevant ministries (e.g. Ministry of Environment/ Agriculture/Industry/Science & Innovation) as key drivers to build a national biotech strategy focusing on the strong points of the country.
The meeting may stimulate development of national biotech strategies in the new Member States.
Participants asked for a follow-up meeting. They highlighted the need to involve other key people from their country dealing with innovation, research and science either from the government or from universities.
The EU Commission was asked to organise small workshops on specific issue in the future with common interest for both old and new member states where both experts from western and Eastern Europe would be present.
Some of the participants suggested organising meetings in one of the new Member States and inviting representatives from agriculture/environment/education ministries to discuss the importance of a biotech strategy with a clear medium and long term vision.
Although each country has its own characteristics, politicians together with scientists and industry should explore opportunities to use the current instruments (e.g. the European Life sciences strategy/ Structural funds/ Technology platforms/Framework research programmes) to strengthen their biotechnology sectors .
At a national level they should also ensure the high level of education to teach the students so that they will have the needed human resource base for their future biotechnology development.
Conclusions and recommendations:
In the biotech field is difficult to work in isolation, and therefore it is important to involve all the actors at national, regional and European level.
The EU Commission will work to establish the most useful type of meetings to be organised, and welcome suggestions from the participants.
The New Member States are welcome to contribute to the progress report. Also their comments on the 30 action points of the strategy could help the European institutions to improve and adapt the policy tools to their needs.
It must be made clear to policy-makers that the strategy is the most important and well-balanced tool that Europe has developed, but that major problems exist in some Member States re: implementation.
Input from the New Member States can help to adapt the existing policy tools or create new ones to respond to the healthcare, environmental and agricultural challenges for an enlarged Europe.
On behalf of the organizers:
Alina Cornea
EuropaBio