Description of the organisation

The Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum (SEZ) of the Steinbeis Innovation gGmbH belongs to the Steinbeis Foundation for Economic Promotion. The Foundation runs approximately 600 so-called "Technology Transfer Centres" mainly in Baden-Württemberg, but also in other regions in Germany and Europe. The Technology Transfer Centres are mostly attached to research organisations in order to guarantee a close connection between R&D sector and industry. More than 3000 researchers, consultants and engineers carry out more than 20,000 contracts per year to improve strategy, product and process development of companies. 

SEZ was founded in March 1990 and has been a member of the European Network of Innovation Relay Centre (IRC) since 1995 and head of the IRC consortium responsible for Baden-Württemberg, Thuringia and North of Switzerland. Since 2008, SEZ is a member of the regional European Enterprise Network (EEN) consortia. SEZ is also the official National Contact Point (NCP) for SMEs in the region of Baden-Württemberg.

The core activities of the Steinbeis-Europa-Zentrum of the Steinbeis Innovation gGmbH are:

• to assist organisations in participating to European R&D projects
• to support the management of international research projects
• to give assistance in the exploitation of the research results
• to promote transnational technology transfer
• to stimulate and support the innovation process in industrial companies.

SEZ has also a lot of experience in organising workshops, conferences and brokerage events for technology transfer as well as finding partners for RTD-proposals. SEZ was involved in more than 40 European projects in the last years, a number of them connected to the CRAFT / R4SME projects, thus ensuring a very good knowledge of SMEs in the state of Baden-Württemberg.

Contribution to the project

Due to its experience in managing European projects, SEZ will take over the part of the administrative and financial management. SEZ has also long-time experience in conducting studies, surveys and SWOT analyses and will therefore lead the task of evaluating the MBR technology requirements in Europe and MENA, with the support of all the partners in the consortium. Furthermore, SEZ has invaluable experience in technology transfer and knowledge management.

Therefore, it will be leader of WP9, dealing mainly with:

• the dissemination of the project's activities and results
• the exploitation of the project's results by its own networks and channels as well as networks to be established (e.g. ETPs, networks and initiatives in MENA, etc.)
• the IPR management and technology watch of membrane bioreactor technology.

SEZ is also experienced in training activities and will support HSKA and CBS in their training workshops.