Seminar on Commercialisation of Scientific and Technical Activity, Armenia, July 2007

The second joint CNCP/ISTC Commercialisation Seminar was held in Armenia on 11 and 12 July 2007. The representatives of scientific research institutes from Armenia and Georgia have taken part in seminar.

The seminar was introduced by Ara Avetisyan, Deputy Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Armenia.
On the morning of the first day sessions concentrated on explaining the commercialisation strategies of both ISTC and CNCP. Thereafter there were sessions on intellectual property and commercialisation, and marketing strategies led respectively by Christopher Watson and Christophe Trontin representing CNCP. In addition ISTC had arranged for Vladimir Zinov, Dean of Innovation and Technology at the Russian Academy of National Economy, to give talks on intellectual property and commercial R & D in Russia. The sessions gave plenty of opportunity for CNCP to present to delegates the commercialisation processes used in Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Kazakhstan as well as the Russian closed cities. Delegates were able to compare CNCP's approach to commercialisation with that of ISTC whose strategy was explained by Tim Murray, Manager of the Commercialisation Unit at ISTC.

The second day was structured around a series of short presentations, chaired by Vladimir Zinov, on CNCP's experience of working with technology based projects in Russia, the training activities of CNCP, and ISTC's competency building programme for scientists. These sessions, which generated a considerable number of questions from the delegates, were followed by some impromptu responses from delegates on commercialization activities in their institutes.

This seminar provided a good opportunity to carry out further training in commercialisation and make new contacts in the institutes in Armenia and Georgia. It demonstrated again the benefits of working with ISTC to develop useful contacts and achieve results.