(Tiper Stock Exchange) – AENEAS field 5.5 million euros in three years to finance the Proof of concept (PoC), the internal program aimed at reducing the distance between research And industrial application. The May 12th the first tender for an amount of around half a million euros will be published on the ENEA website, intended to co-finance the development of ENEA technologies in collaboration with companies that will express their interest by 9 June 2023. This first investment makes use of the resources available from the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy (MIMIT) under the PNRR and adds to the 5 million internal ENEA funds – a further 1 million in 2023, 2 million in 2024 and 2 in 2025 – which will also be used to finance PoC projects with companies.
In this first announcement companies will be able to express interest in the development of technologies chosen from approx 50 ENEA patents, from materials science to biotechnology, of which around 40% have intellectual property protection also at international level. The companies that co-finance the projects, contributing at least 10% of the costs of the chosen PoC project, will be granted an option right, free of charge, on the exclusive license of the developed patent and any further results.
“The basic logic of the PoC program is to foster win-win collaboration between the various players involved in the development process right from the embryonic stages of defining a technology. Through an open innovation approach, it is possible to increase the probability of adoption of public research results by the productive world and for industrial partners to minimize the market risk to which companies are exposed, especially in the embryonic stages of development of a new technology,” he comments Gaetano Coletta, head of the Service Offer and enhancement of innovation services of the ENEA Department of Innovation and Development.
Set up in 2018, ENEA’s PoC program has so far funded the development of 36 projects with industrial partners with over €1.6 million, aiming at the creation of strategic partnerships for innovation. Among the success stories achieved so far: the new building material BIOAERMAC, highly insulating and resistant, created from waste products of the chemical industry, thanks to the collaboration with the Italian company Fluorsid SpA, world leader in the production of inorganic derivatives of fluorine; The ASCANIO project for the creation of a network of sentinel sensors to safeguard the territory and infrastructures, such as bridges, dams and viaducts, which will give life to an ENEA spin-off in which industrial partners also participate Earth System Srl and GEI Srl; the process for producing detoxified gluten, suitable for celiac and intolerant foods, with nutritional and organoleptic properties superior to those of gluten-free products currently on the market.