Research and development in Life Science Technology requires that new technologies be used to gain greater understanding and develop solutions to future problems. SMILE is a project aiming to facilitate the region's small business environments to become productive users of new national and international infrastructures in the life sciences, especially the synchrotron / electron / neutron resources MAX IV & ESS (Lund) and DESY (Hamburg), where development is very fast at the moment.
* Counties of Sörmland, Östergötland, Örebro, Västmanland and Uppland
Development
The projectIllustration of ÖMS area situation in Sweden has the following main activities:
- Development of innovation concepts and ideas.
- Pilot projects with SME users to test developed innovation concepts and ideas.
- Initiation of collaborative networks with regional players inside and outside ÖMS * (including the Interreg-funded project HALOS).
Opportunities
Innovation companies and SMEs have limited opportunities to make investments in equipment and computational power needed to exploit the new national and international infrastructuresin the life sciences, especially synchrotron/electron/neutron resources MAX IV & ESS (Lund) and DESY (Hamburg). Preparatory measurements are necessary to get experimental time in national/international competition. Samples in the life sciences are extra sensitive and experimental conditions need to be carefully evaluated before the measurement, which requires a combination of specific costly equipment and expertise. After the experiment, data may need to be evaluated in advanced computing environments (supercomputer clusters through PReSTO) and with licensed software that many SMEs cannot afford. In addition, there will be difficulties within an SME to stay updated on the rapid development of knowledge about infrastructure measurements.
Goal
Increased innovation capacity of SMEs in the ÖMS region * in the area of Life Science through infrastructure-based deeper collaboration between academia and business, and thus increased opportunities for commercialization of innovations and strong and sustainable growth.
