Euro Info Centre IT 351 - Azienda Speciale della Camera di Commercio di Milano

MILAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

The Milan Chamber of Commerce is an independent local public body that performs tasks of general interest for enterprises and fosters their development within local economies. It is the biggest Italian Chamber of Commerce with its more than 330.000 associated companies.

The CCIAA's activities range from support to small businesses to the entire productive system in order to help it to enter the global market. The traditional duties of the Chamber of Commerce were to supervise prices and weights and measures, collate and publish customs, protect manufactures' hallmarks and brand names and keep professional registers.

It may be pointed out that the Milan Chamber of Commerce has proved to be sensitive to innovative and technological issues concerning SMEs so as to combine traditional tasks with openness to innovation. The CCIAA through its specialised Agency, Euro Info Centre, will use its network of contacts and connections for the project at national and international level. In particular the CCIAA has developed experience in terms of carrying out innovative activities targeted to SMEs. In the last few years many different services have been delivered by the Chamber of Commerce and its specialised agencies to the Chamber's associated firms in this field.

As far as Research and Innovation are concerned, the Chamber has been developing different services from registration of patents to participation to R&D projects. The patent office of the Chamber of Commerce will be deeply involved in the project.

The expertise of this specialised office is shown by its 4.700 patents registered in 2002 and represents about 34% of the total at national level.

Working with it may be possible to develop a well co-ordinated action to offer complementary services concerning patents. For example, the opportunities offered by technological transfer and innovation, the benefits offered when patenting a creation and particularly the role of industrial patent protection as a means for improving entrepreneurial competitiveness for biotech companies are being- and will further be- promoted and stimulated.

EURO INFO CENTRE OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF MILAN

Euro Info Centres (EIC) constitute a European network of almost 280 EICs established in the EU Member States and associated countries and are connected to the European Commission (DG enterprise). They act as a link between local organisations and the Commission. Their objective is to help SMEs. Indeed they act as an interface between European institutions and companies operating at local level, thus ensuring a better possibility for SMEs to accede more easily to the information and the opportunities offered by the European Union. The Euro Info Centres inform, advise and assist SMEs in all Europe-related areas while taking into account the great variety of enterprises concerned.

The EIC of Milan (www.eurosportello.com) is one of most experienced EICs in the network and has been managing a number of transnational projects, ranging from co-operation to training, from technology transfer to information campaigns. The EIC of Milan has been national co-ordinator and site manager for the Italian EICs information campaign on e-business and has been working on various projects targeted at SMEs in co-operation with other Special Agencies of the Chamber of Commerce of Milan in order to raise awareness, promote, use and train SMEs for fostering innovation in its widest sense. The Euro Info Centre of Milan is very active in providing information in the field of research, development, innovation and, more generally, new advanced technologies. In particular it is the co-ordinator of the e-business legal portal(www.ebusinesslex.net) co-financed by the European Commission, Enterprise DG - D4, set up in 2002 and still running. It has been realised by working together with other EICs in the old EU15 countries and Norway. In 2004 the portal has been extended to Lithuania, Slovenia, Malta and Bulgaria.

For the CCIAA, its host structure, the EIC also manages the Innovation project of the Chamber. Together with other Chambers of Commerce, Entrepreneurial Associations the Euro Info Centre also organises workshops, seminars and training courses about the issues considered to be topical for SMEs.

Since 2002 the Euro Info Centre has been managing the APRE (Agency for Promotion of European Research) desk in Lombardy through which the EIC provides assistance and information about all issues concerning Research and Innovation. This service of information, documentation, assistance and training to large companies, SMEs, public bodies and research institutions is aimed at fostering Italian participation to European Research programmes in order to promote the creation of an integrated European Research Area, as contained in the VI Framework Programme. Moreover through the local network of its Special Agency, Euro Info Centre, the Chamber is directly connected to other Chambers of Commerce in Lombardy (Como, Varese, Bergamo, Brescia, Pavia, Cremona , Mantova, Lecco, Sondrio) so as to have a distributed presence on the territory and a closer contact with local enterprises and through international networks it ensures contacts with EICs in more than 40 countries.

Since April 2004, the EIC acts as partner on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce of Milan in the new Innovation Relay Centre Lombardia, with the Regional government and other academic related institutions for activities aimed at transnational technology transfer and development of technical co-operation among companies belonging to different countries.

Focus on biotechnology

Lombardy shows a high concentration of companies working in the biotechnology field, with 49% of Italian biotech companies and 72% of employees and this is one of the areas on which the Chamber of Commerce is particularly concentrating its innovation support activities, given the concentration of companies in the Milan Province which by mandate are represented by the Chamber of Commerce of Milan ( remember that in Italy registration of companies at the Chamber of Commerce is compulsory)

It is aware of the need to promote the biotech sector, which needs to be enhanced due to its highly innovative spin offs into various fields (scientific, production, economic and social).Within the Innovation project managed by its Euro Info Centre, from promotion and technical assistance about available funding opportunities and/or contacts for potential partners it is possible to establish long term co-operation and support also finalised to technology transfer. Promotion, assistance and technology transfer are integrated aspects with the final aim of customising companies, by taking them through their "innovative" path and specifically addressing their needs in each single case. This is to be done by providing added value services which can help companies overcome their barriers and turn their ideas into concrete projects.

Specifically in the biotech sector, added value services may be those of helping companies in identifying potential partners for business at international level. A dedicated and high level match making service was provided by the Chamber during the Bio event in San Francisco given the fact that support in arranging meetings is crucial in such sort of events.

The Chamber is supporting the participation of companies to different events to foster networking and technology transfer in other events (e.g. Biomediterranée, Marseille, October)

Support to biotech companies to be strengthened in the future by means of support and participation to events and fairs

Connection between European funding and local companies by the EIC : dedicated network distributed throughout the territory

Networking role and possibility to exploit connections at international level thanks to the fact of belonging to a European network (development of biotech cluster in connection and interrelation with other European regions )

European vision and local rooting

Recent events/projects :

  • Bio 2004 - S Francisco- June 2004: 5 companies taken to the most important fair on biotechnology; promotion of transnational collaborations aimed at technology and know-how transfer
  • BIOINIZIATIVA : important initiative to favour entrepreneurial development of biotechnologies in Lombardy. It has been promoted by Assolombarda and Finlombarda (and financed by the Region Lombardia and Fondazione Cariplo) to foster the entrepreneurial development of biotech companies in Lombardy, and has been carried out by Assotec, a Chamber of Commerce of Milan's associated firm. Its main objective is that of enhancing the scientific results generated by the research system and of transforming them into technology innovation, from where to derive the start-up of new innovative companies.
  • Bioforum -exhibition and conferences -Milan 22-24 Sep 2004 (also as an example of the public debate on biotech in the area), organised by ITER in cooperation with Universities, CNR, Assobiotec, with the support of the Region, province and Chamber of Commerce of Milan.
  • Marseille: Biomediterranée 26-29 October and IRC event about biotechnologies (5 companies taken by IRC Lombardia- CCIAA Milan to Marseille to meet potential interested partners for technical cooperation) promotion of transnational collaborations aimed at technology and know-how transfer
  • NUCLEO: D4-FSE 2003."Nucleo alla fattibilità di progetti innovativi" (feasibility of innovative projects) in the biotech field (especially agrofood)- partners: Parco Tecnologico Padano- Chamber of Commerce of Lodi- Chamber of Commerce of Milano- thorugh its EIC)
  • Net BioCluE project: proposal within the networking key players and users call FP6-2004-INNOV6. The project proposed will start with the analysis of different European biotechnology clusters active in the healthcare sector. This study will establish the distinctive characteristics of each cluster in consideration of its stage of development and will identify the possible evolutionary path that each cluster may be anticipated to follow. The direction of future developments in relation to the markets, bio-science research, and business models in use in the sector will be studied A synthesis of it will lead to the identification of best practices related to the critical issues for biotech cluster, cross-cluster development and the generation of successful innovation and commercialisation of knowledge. By way of framing pilot action, joint programmes will be designed and initiated and the most appropriate policy recommendations. The quality of the consortium will be relevant for the design of activities and better possibility of knowledge sharing among highly relevant players. The project includes leading biotechnology clusters in Europe(Cambridge in UK, Munich and Heidelberg in Germany, Ile de France-Paris in France), other developed clusters (Dundee in Scotland, Aaarhus in Denmark, Biotech Valley in Sweden, the Lombard-Piedmont megacluster in Italy) as well as emerging clusters in the mapping phase in Hungary and the Czech Republic

Future activities related to Biotech which the Chamber is going to promote and to which it intends to participate :

  • Bio 2005 Philadelphia- June 2005
  • In addition the Chamber of Commerce of Milan -Euro Info Centre- is member of the ERRIN working group on biotechnology.

The wide range of services provided to biotech companies daily takes the Chamber of Commerce and its EIC in contact with their information needs in order to comply with existing regulation, their needs for assistance to take advantage of available opportunities for funding, for support in exploitation of research results, for partners in technical development and so on. This all provides an ideal basis to shape an information service to their actual needs given the constant contact existing with companies and particularly with companies belonging to the Milan biotech cluster. A close contact with the companies belonging to the identified biotech cluster is therefore ensured and an integration of services to be developed for their support is then envisaged for an easier practical application of theoretical approaches and testing and dissemination of identified best practices.

Projects :

The Chamber of Commerce of Milano, through its Euro Info Centre (EIC) has developed a long experience in drafting proposals and managing EU projects. It participates both as partner or coordinator directly to international projects and provides technical assistance to companies in drafting and managing EU, national and regional projects. It has also developed a network of relations with the EU DG s launching the different calls for proposals/tender; it is well rooted in the local context and it also belongs to different international networks.

The Chamber of Commerce of Milan, through its EIC, currently is (non exhaustive list) :

  • project coordinator of the EU ebusiness legal portal - www.ebusinesslex.net (20 partners in 20 different States)
  • partner of the Innovation Relay Centre Lombardia for transnational technology transfer - in partnership with the regional governmnent (particular focus on biotech)
  • project coordinator for the development of a Euro Info Correspondence Centre in Skopje to provide information / assistance on EU related matters (EuropeAid).
  • partner to different FP6 projects -(ETI ECTIST for promotion of SMEs research in FP6 projects dealing with surface technologies; CA Leadout)
  • partner to D4-FSE 2003 "Nucleo"-concerning "Feasibility of innovative projects in biotech sector"

Besides activities related to drafting /administrative and financial management, the Chamber of Commerce of Milan , through its EIC, may also ensure the fundamental and required mobilisation of companies and resources in the cluster as well as the related testing activities to be possibly carried out in the project. It can also foresee activities for best practices dissemination and awareness raising through its links throughout the territory and ensure contact with other local entities to be involved.

Other Themes of interest

  • ICT
  • New materials
  • Innovation governance (direct calls to promote innovation in co-operation with Province and Region)
  • Innovation as priority of the Chamber
  • Technology transfer
  • Link between research and business
Euro Info Centre Azienda Speciale della Camera di Commercio di Milano
Via Camperio 1
20123 Milano, Italia
www.eurosportello.com

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