Silicon Valley? Nano Valley!

September  2011. cynora joins the nanoValley initiative where academia and innovative enterprises collaborate. nanoValley stands for a high-tech initiative to support innovative activities in small and midsized enterprises (SME). The major goal of nanoValley.eu is the transfer of research results into products and new businesses. Additionally, nanoValley.eu is engaged in developing a European Technology Region (D/F/CH), represented internationally with placement within the global competition of the technology regions. The initiative maintains a technology office at the Institute of Nanotechnology at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

Technology transfer and research commercialization
The nanoValley.eu initiative aspires to win protagonists from science and enterprises with overlapping innovative interests for a common approach. Transfer partners are actively sought after by way of a contact office, are motivated for collaborations and made mutually productive in transfer forums. The principle is that all transfer forum parties benefit from the collaboration. Research contracts are to be granted or funds generated for the sciences. In return, enterprises must be able to derive modified or new products from the transfer forum work.

The commercialization of research results also depends, largely, on whether scientists themselves will become entrepreneurs. In addition to the establishment and development of transfer forums, the contact office has the task of identifying scientific personnel who are interested in starting a business. The contact office supports the project founders in the selection of advisory and financing offers, the generation of market analyses as well as addressing new customers.

Representation and international solicitation of a European technology region
Technology regions are in global competition for knowledge, skilled personnel and investments. Silicon Valley in California has long set the example: The reputation of a technology region is a decisive factor for participation in this competition. Crucial to the innovative strength of the technology area are the extent and quality of the cooperative network of enterprises, as well as enterprise and research institutions. Technology regions, whose protagonists successfully accomplish this, develop attracting forces for investments, entrepreneurial talents and top personnel for science and industry. It is a goal of the nanoValley.eu initiative to make the region internationally visible and known in the context of a European technology region.