A dozen concrete proposals or bilateral collaborations have been set up by the partners within the EU FP6 funded project Boost Biosystems. “The project informed over 200 actors about biosystem potential in various regional events and assisted 45 SMEs in setting up EU FP7 proposals or collaborations in biosystems field“, - says Frank Graage from Steinbeis team Northeast, the coordinator of the project.
 
New diagnostics was identified as one of the most promising focus areas for the region and it resulted in several new initiatives. One of them is the establishment of a Baltic Center of Innovative Diagnostics by ScanBalt Knowledge Network Molecular Diagnostics that will be the hub for further transnational collaborations. The new Finnish cluster strategy includes closer collaboration between the HealthBIO, Nano- and ICT clusters, in order to be in line with the interdisciplinary approach of biosystems and new diagnostics. The project also provided the participants and stakeholders with good contacts to potential partners in the region as well as support in managing EU projects.
 
The project results and concrete success stories will be presented in the Boost Biosystems session during the 7th ScanBalt Forum and Biomaterials days on September 24-26 in Vilnius, Lithuania.
 
During the Forum ScanBalt will present a business plan for creating a SME support service that will continue supporting the SMEs in transnational collaborations and EU research proposals. The partners will also continue to offer brokerage events in the region in collaboration with local development agencies in the future.
 
The EU funded project Boost Biosystems with its approach of mobilising actors in the ScanBalt BioRegion – the life science metacluster in the Baltic Sea Region - provides an opportunity to create critical mass, creating a platform for knowledge transfer in this new technology field, strengthening SMEs and integrating emerging economies of the new member states around the Baltic Sea Region. www.scanbalt.org/biosystems
 
Contact:
Frank Graage
Steinbeis Team Nordost
tel: +49 381/210 66 10
E-mail: graage@steinbeis-nordost.de  
 
Beata Grablevska
ScanBalt
tel. +45 35 32 41 48
E-mail: bg@scanbalt.org