Good practice:

TECNIOspring - ACCIÓ's international talent attraction programme - (3 editions, from 2013 to 2024)

TECNIOspring is the ACCIÓ's (Business Competitiveness Agency of the Government of Catalonia) international talent attraction programme providing 100% financial support to individual mobility proposals presented by experienced researchers in liaison with any R&D entity around the world. Fellows are offered 2-year employment contracts to develop an applied research project with focus on technology transfer.
The main goals of this programme are to attract highly talented researchers and provide them with international experience, as well as to reinforce companies’ capacities and foster their international collaborations.
The programme aims at involving industry in several ways. First, tech-based companies are eligible as host organisations. Second, fellows hosted by research centres will be seconded to a company already interested in the outcomes of the applied research project.
The main beneficiaries of this programme are Catalan R&D entities and international experienced researchers, which agree on an applied research project to be developed and submit the proposal together
Financial support:
- Salary costs (with full social security coverage): 58.500 € per year.
- Research costs: 17.280€.
- Mobility costs: 1.920€.

This programme has been running since 2013 and it has a total budget of 29 M€ for the period 2013-2024.
The programme has been funded by the Government of Catalonia through ACCIÓ and the European Commission FP7 and H2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions.

This programme has been very well received and has reached high technology transfer impact results: employment creation rate over 72%, 19 patents applications, 25 company agreements, 8 prototypes and 2 spin-offs. As a result of this, its 3rd edition will start in June 2019.
Since 2013 until now, 98 researchers have been funded (18 of which in the field of chemistry, energy and resources) and 207 R&D contracts with experienced researchers are expected to be granted for the period 2013-2024

This type of collaborative research and innovation projects can be replicated in other regions to promote the internationalization and co-competitiveness of European companies in the field of chemical industries, in an environment of global competitiveness, as the challenges are shared and the Development times may be shortened.
Within the framework of the project, mechanisms and platforms can be learnt to connect companies and centres from different participating regions