"The training is very helpful to introduce researchers to an entrepreneurial mindset!"
24–25 January 2019: Representatives of 5 FET projects (Ves4US, evFOUNDRY, EDIT, D_NOISE, evo_nano) came together for another two-day FET2RIN training workshop at the EBN (ebn.eu) premises in Brussels. During the two days, the FET project participants worked with mentors from the EBN network and trainers from META group (http://www.meta-group.com/Pages/default.aspx) to get a better understanding of the commercialisation potential for their research findings. They learnt about leveraging their projects’ customer expectations (value proposition), financing alternatives (crowdfunding), Intellectual Property (IP) and pitching. Value proposition design Value proposition is about creating products/services that meet customers’ expectations, and one of the common mistakes entrepreneurs and researchers make is losing sight of customers’ needs by focusing too deeply on the product/service/research/technology at hand. To avoid this mistake, the FET participants worked with their mentors, experts in business strategy and coaching, to analyse their project’s potential customer market and its expectations. “Let’s focus on your early adopters. Let’s think outside of the Lab and focus on the question, why somebody should adopt your technology” - Dario Mazzella from META Group (http://www.meta-group.com) encouraged the participants. IP strategy and commercialisation options for R&D projects Which IP aspects do FET participants need to take into account for successful exploitation of their research results? What are the important aspects to take into consideration when building an R&D consortium? FET participants learnt about these key topics from FET2RIN trainer Raffaele Buompane, an IP specialist. Crowdfunding for R&D projects Crowdfunding is a viable financing alternative for R&D projects such as the FET projects, so both the second and third workshop explore this topic in-depth. Natalie Ann Jonk, founder of CrowdScience (https://crowd.science/) a crowdfunding platform specialising in crowdfunding for R&D projects, and Francesca Passeri from European Crowdfunding Network (http://eurocrowd.org/) talked about crowdfunding and how it can be best used to finance R&D projects. As a practical exercise, the FET participants had to think of the crowdfunding platform that would best suit their needs. Intro to pitching As a preparation for the final workshop where the FET participants will pitch in front of investors, Dario Mazzella from META Group (http://www.meta-group.com) gave an introduction to the art of pitching - how to pitch your R&D projects to an external audience? “People don’t really care about your technology. They care about what they can do with it and how it will make their life easier,” explained Dario Mazzella to the participants. What have participants said about the training? “The training is very helpful to introduce researchers to an entrepreneurial mindset!” Laura Corcuera, Ves4US (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/216332/factsheet/en). “The training is great! We would have needed it from the beginning of our project. It would have saved us a lot of time and error.” Amin Hassani, D-Noise (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/209090/factsheet/en) This was the second workshop of the training with the final one taking place 21–22 February 2019 at the EBN premises in Brussels when the FET participants will learn more about crowdfunding and pitch in front of investors and business angels. In the meantime, follow us on Twitter (@Fet2Rin) and Facebook (@fet2rin)!
Keywords
FET, pitching, training, crowdfunding, IP, businessmodel
Countries
Belgium, Italy, Serbia