Leading European pilot facilities for industrial biotechnology join forces to improve Europe’s innovation capacity

SmartPilots, an INTERREG Europe project co-funded by  the European Fund for Regional Development (ERDF), brings together six leading European Shared Pilot Facilities (SPF) specialized in the Key Enabling Technology ‘Industrial Biotechnology’ and bioeconomy, with the aim to discuss and share best funding and operating practices and improve policies in support of such facilities. Enhanced support for Shared Pilot Facilities should substantially improve Europe’s sustainable innovation capacity and is a crucial element in dealing with societal challenges such as developing a sustainable, innovative and knowledge-based economy in Europe, creating jobs and meeting climate targets.

Shared Pilot Facilities are open access research and demonstration facilities investing in a broad spectrum of state-of-the-art equipment and required expertise with the aim to help innovative companies scale-up their successful research from a laboratory to an industrial scale.

Steven Pearson, Head of Business Development at the Centre for Process Innovation, says: “Collaboration, in an early stage of innovation, with open access shared pilot facilities substantially lowers the financial risk for the innovating company and speeds up the commercialization of their new product or process.”

The partners involved in the project are Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant (Ghent, BE), Bio Process Facility (Delft, NL), Centre for Process Innovation (Wilton, UK), VTT (Espoo, FI), Innovhub (Milano, IT), Department of Economy, Science and Innovation of Flanders (Brussels, BE) and Provincie Zuid-Holland (NL).  Two case studies joined the consortium as well: Agro-industrie Recherches et Développements (ARD, Pomacle, France) and Fraunhofer-Zentrum für Chemisch-Biotechnologische Prozesse (CBP, Leuna, Germany).

SmartPilots have released a promotional video to explain how the project partners can help companies innovating in the bio based economy.

Please click on the link below to find out how how collaborating with a pilot facility can help you drop your financial risk and time to market significantly.