STIMULATING AND SUPPORTING NEW BUSINESS IN IRELAND

Successful Irish meeting of ATLANTECH International Technology Transfer Programme

By James Donlon, July 20, 2006

WESTBIC recently hosted the final steering committee meeting of it’s partners involved in the Interreg IIIB Atlantech project. The project is based on a transnational partnership of European Business Innovation Centres specialising in business innovation, science and technology commercialisation and support for internationalisation.

Over the past two and a half years the project has encouraged the participation by selected SME’s from the BMW region in business cooperation and technology transfer with companies in Spain, Portugal and the UK. Cooperation opportunities are ongoing in sectors such as Information Technology, Engineering, Fuel saving systems, bio fuels and natural food additives.

On this mission partners visited Jackson Engineering Ltd a state of the art manufacturing plant in Castlebar which has recently launched on the Irish market an innovative concrete lifting platform and the Marine Institute Salmon Research Facility at Newport where data on every aspect of salmon behaviour is collected daily. Partners on the project are very impressed with the marketing and research capability of Irish companies and have promised to continue to work with WESTBIC to ensure cooperation processes reach a successful conclusion. The ATLANTECH project is part-funded by the European Union through the Interreg IIIB Programme.

Pictured below are ATLANTECH inter-regional project partners following a successful visit to Jackson Engineering, Castlebar, Co. Mayo