Best Practice Example: „Biopacking“ Tempus Speaker: Harald Bleier Date: 30.11.2010 Good morning once again, Ladies and Gentleman I would like to thank you for taking the time to be here today

Content Why is CORNET important Plastics-Cluster? What are the advantages for the companies? What are the benefits for the research centres? Alexander Komenda will inform you about the project details. What are the direct and additional results? Questions & Discussion Today, I would like to give you some information about: Why is CORNET important for ecoplus, the business agency of Lower Austria? Than I will talk about the advantages for the companies participating. After that I will inform you about the benefits of and for the research centres. Then I will hand over to my colleague Alexander who is the project manager of the BIOPACKING project. He will tell you about the project details and structure. Additionally he will give you details and an impression of his daily activities as a CORNET project manager. Finally I will provide you with the direct and additional results that we expect from this project. Should you have any questions, then feel free to ask them, at the end of the presentation, when we will be more than happy to answer them.

Why is CORNET important Plastics-Cluster? Cornet selects a relevant regional topic like bioplastic and identifies companies for which this is important Ecoplus is the business agency of the Lower Austrian government. We from the department cluster and network, are responsible to strengthen the company's competitiveness. The main focus of the clusters are on cooperation projects. More than 100 completed and currant projects show a significant +5% difference in the finance value of earned income, between companies who are involved than the others. Normally the cooperation project is small, 3 to 5 companies are involved. The Topic comes from the involved companies and we, from the clusters, help them to overcome first inhibitions. Raw Materials Medical Products Food Packaging

Why is CORNET important for Austria? International contacts and visibility Belgium-Flanders Belgium-Wallonia France Germany Poland Slovenia Austria The international cooperation helps many to see the state of the art technologies and build up friendships between the project manager and scientists. Especially for new technologies this is very important to fight against old technologies, to help overcome marked entrance barriers.

Why is CORNET important for Plastics-Cluster? High number of involved companies CORNET offers to us the possibility to select our own strategic topic like BIOPLASTIC, where we believe that it is important for our companies to know about this and build up knowledge which is necessary to be competitive in the future. CORNET BIOBASED MATERIAL, research institutions from six countries are work together. From raw material production, to converting this to sheets for food and drink packaging and the complete recycling procedure. BUZEK Kunststoffverarbeitung

What are the advantages for the companies? Specially for SME easy contact to R&D Organisations Own the complete results and have the chance to develop an own product. Price and risk situation is very good Build up new business areas New contacts during project time give chance for new business Now we are coming to the advantages for the companies. Specially for SME most do not have their own R&D department and it is a big benefit to have access to scientists an their research equipment during the project. All results which are worked out during the project are owned by the project members and this circumstance gives every partner the possibility to develop their own product.

What are the advantages for the companies? Knowledge will be built up together Best practical product is a teamwork result Learning by doing Closed value added chains are possible The risk for the companies involved are minimal, because you will get much more than what you paid for. During the project a lot of people will meet each other. People talking to each other often creates opportunities for new business. We make sure we have closed value added chain groups for developing new products, this helps to get a good market entrance.

What are the benefits for the research centres? Get the project budget Build up new knowledge New contacts to companies Convince SME´s for future cooperations The research centres get the money and new contacts.

What are the benefits for the research centres? Cooperate internationally and see more about other R&D´s International exposure of their own strengths Use infrastructure from other institutes Offer own infrastructure to the others They will learn a lot through the international cooperation, exposure of their own strengths and see how other institutions are working and which infrastructure they are using. The secret behind getting the best project results is to force researchers to work together and not compete against each other. Alexander knows a lot about this and now I will hand it over to him and he will give to you a short project overview.

What are the direct and additional results? The knowledge from all involved partners is available. Involved companies coming up with new products Build up new contacts for future business Convincing that cooperation strengthens the participants own position New friendships coming up and create new business ………….. The best results for us are the new friendships, because this is the real effort. Through this we get new ideas, then new products, new businesses , new jobs new and growing companies and this is what we from ecoplus really want.