University Politehnica of Bucharest (P6) and Uefiscdi (P7) held the 5th regional stakeholder workshop in Cluj Napoca on 28th of September 2018 as a side event of the 8th International Conference “Biomaterials, Tissue Engineering & Medical Devices” BIOMMEDD’2018. There were 13 stakeholders and the project team. NMP-REG partners chose this option to increase the visibility of the project to a wider audience. Moreover, regional stakeholders from Bucharest-Ilfov region announced their presence in Cluj-Napoca and we decided to increase also the importance of the regional NMP-REG stakeholder workshop by connecting them with an international event. During the event, the discussions were focused on science-industry cooperation for gathering relevant input for the action plan. Stakeholders mentioned that nanomaterials is a multidisciplinary domain, having applications in various sectors as for example medicine, engineering etc. and underlined the importance of raising awareness about their potential to produce significant S&T advances and their impact in society. Moreover, they reiterate the importance of creating links between the actors of the innovation ecosystem and mention the idea of developing a community of researchers and practitioners in the field of NMP based on the stakeholder group created in the NMP-REG project. Also, the debates were orientated towards financing. The stakeholders mentioned the importance of keeping NMP as a smart specialization domain at national level and they underlined their economic potential to become regional S3 in Bucharest-Ilfov and North-West regions.
The main work during the other engagement activities (Meeting with the representatives of the Regional Development Agencies in Romania, Info Day - Collaborative Research Projects 2018 call -EEA Grants, Innovation Cafe) was dedicated to inform a wider audience about NMP-REG project and to test the idea of creating a community of stakeholders as part of the action plan.
In semester 5, the work with stakeholders revealed the importance of considering NMP under a wider umbrella, of smart specialization. Therefore, science-industry collaboration should be considered broadly, as part of the entrepreneurial discovery process and should be focused on a large spectrum of activities: from entering in contact, to education for knowledge exchange and project partnerships.
Pictures taken during the event.
