EU regions band together for biotech – call for proposal

Partners in the EUROTRANS-BIO project will pool resources in a call for proposals aimed at fostering competitiveness in Europe's biotechnology industry. Research-intensive SMEs in this sector are the primary audience of the call. The EUROTRANS-BIO network intends to publish the first of what might be several transnational calls for proposals aimed at research-intensive small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the biotechnology sector. Successful proposals in all fields of biotech will share approximately €30 million being put up by five of the six countries involved in this ERA-NET project. ERA-NET is a scheme created to step up co-operation and coordination of research activities at national or regional levels across the Union, where ‘ERA' can be traced back to the European Research Area (ERA) concept and ‘NET' to networks and networking activities. EUROTRANS-BIO's partner countries and regions are working together, in the spirit of the ERA, to support transnational R&D – private-to-private and private-to-public – co-operation between companies by coordinating their national or regional public funding programmes. For more information please click "here":[ http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/infocentre/article_en.cfm?id=/comm/research/headlines/news/article_05_10_26_en.html&item=Infocentre].

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