Dr. Salvarezza presented the “CONICET Technologies” seminar

Before a large audience who attended the meeting, the president of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), Dr. Roberto Salvarezza, and the Science, Technology and Productive Innovation Minister Lino Barañao, participated in the opening of the “CONICET Technologies. A bridge between science and innovation” seminar.

During his speech, the president of the Council said that “the political decision of the Government to promote science in the last ten years requires scientific knowledge for the development and quality of life of the citizens. Over the last twelve years, all transfer has been made from the Technology Transfer Office of the Council as CONICET-Technology. This brand has been used for commercial products that belonged to the food and cosmetics areas; and we aim to promote other areas soon”.

Furthermore, the president of the Council highlighted that last year more than 1000 companies – 600 of them are SMEs – and State organizations demanded services, expert advice and signed transfer agreements with the CONICET. Fortunately, the number of agreements increased by 40% more than 2013. “More than 1600 researchers at the CONICET participated in these activities. This reflects that the productive sector has begun to use progressively the R&D skills provided by the National State”, he commented.

He also emphasised the need to establish a public-private consortiums to accomplish the specific technology transfer objectives. “This is one of the strategies in which the Council has had active participation in recent years. Nowadays, researchers at the CONICET are part of more than 40 technology-based companies that belong to special programmes developed by the MINCyT [Science, Technology and Productive Innovation Ministry] as part of national policies. Apart from that, The Council has become direct partner of some enterprises such as YTEC – a technology-based company (CONICET-YPF)”, he said and added that one of the objectives of the Council is to establish three State enterprises in key sectors.

For his part, Dr. Barañao stated that “the challenge of transfer is to produce efficient knowledge and transfer so that the society can be provided with it. The CONICET is devoted to the development of viable solutions and this requires highly skilled resources that articulate science with production and with unstructured sectors.” In this regard, he highlighted the importance of this seminar, which allows us to “observe what happens in other countries and learn about elements that will promote a change towards a country with more transference.”

Besides, Ruth Ladenheim, Secretary of Planning and Policies on Science, Technology and Productive Innovation, who also participated in the opening conference, explained that “as in terms of transfer there are no recipies, it is important to have other experiences and compare them with ours and that is why we are here.”

It is also important to mention that CONICET TECHNOLOGIES (CT) is an institutional brand through with CONICET seeks to encompass all its development activities and technology transfer in order to promote its visualization as a strategic partner of the socio productive, the public and the private sectors in its innovation activities and technologic development.

The objective of this conference was to think how to enhance CONICET-Technology by improving its impact and efficiency through the exchange of ideas and the presentation of different alternatives based on international experiences taking into account the perspective of the National Government in terms of the role of the State as an organizer, articulator and central actor in public politics.

The seminar focused on policies and management models for innovation, international experiences in terms of technology transfer and technology marketing. The meeting was attended by: Elena Andonova (Isis innovation, England), Santiago Sacerdote (Y-TEC), Enrique Medellín Cabrera (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, México) and Krzyztof Guida (European Research Area and Innovation Committee, Poland)

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