The NovelQ 10C approach towards SMEs

On 18 February 2010, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn – the new Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science – gave a speech at the American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union. Mrs Geoghegan-Quinn made two striking remarks:

“My job title covers research, innovation and science. I am glad that President Barroso decided to connect up these different areas. While science and research creates a pool of ideas, innovation policy must bring these ideas to the market. So, it makes sense to link them. In fact, I am the first ever European Commissioner for Innovation – a clear sign of its growing importance for our jobs and growth and our society.”

“…and in collaborative research projects involving public and private sector partners, I want 15 per cent of the funding to go to small and medium-sized businesses… [note: most recent analysis shows the level of SME participation to be 7.5 per cent]…”

These comments are further emphasised by the European Technology Platform (ETP) Food for Life implementation plan, which states:

The structure of the food industry in Europe is unique amongst the manufacturing sector with the overwhelming proportion of the sector (96 per cent) having less than 50 employees (SMEs and micro enterprises) [note: and being the largest manufacturing sector in Europe].

Few such companies have the resources to undertake anything other than quality control and assurance work, and they cannot be expected to participate in research where the payback is frequently long-term in nature.

The needs of such companies must be met through larger conglomerations of researchbased and industry-wide associations working closely with them. However, the sector does include a small number of very large, researchminded companies that can be expected to support joint public-private research projects or programmes in specific areas.

NovelQ ‘10C’ strategy for involving SMEs

In 2005, it became clear that SME participation in projects funded by the European Commission (EC) was poor. The EC introduced the concept of ‘incremental innovations’ – small improvements that add value to products or services to generate customer benefits – in one of their calls on food processing. Based on this mind-set, the strategy for SME and industry participation in NovelQ is defined by ‘10C Actions’, namely:

Action 1: Combined science and applied research approach

The NovelQ consortium decided to follow a strict parallel research-applied science approach from the start of the project in 2005. A basic science approach was followed for immature food technologies – high pressure, high temperature sterilisation, pulsed electrical fields and cold plasma – where payback on any investment is anticipated to be long-term. These types of activities can easily be shared with stakeholders, including the public; a requirement for publically-funded research. More mature technologies including high pressure pasteurisation (as compared with sterilisation) and advanced heating tech – nologies (e.g. microwave, ohmic heating and radio frequency) followed an applied research approach involving SMEs directly.

Action 2: Construction of the NovelQ Industry Advisory Platform

An Industry Advisory Platform (IAP) was created to facilitate effective transfer of novel processing technologies to potential users, and to ensure NovelQ focused on topics important to the food industry, large and small. The IAP members have promoted and exploited our results as well as identifying bottlenecks for us and our spin-off projects to examine more closely. Best practice is disseminated via established networks including the European Federation for Food Science and Technology (EFFoST), and industry and non-profit organisations. Currently, the IAP has 75 members from SMEs, multi-nationals, industrial networks and other international organisations that are interested in novel processing and packaging.

Action 3: Cross-sector involvement of SMEs

The NovelQ consortium has actively sought out food manufacturers, food machinery and equipment suppliers and packaging companies to join the Industry Advisory Platform (IAP). Some members are able to offer something novel whilst others are interested in new research acquisitions. The resulting cross-sector platform stimulates more discussion, ultimately benefiting all participants. As stated by one of the members, “SME suppliers attract SME buyers and vice versa.” Thus, the IAP has been kept open to new parties willing to participate under the agreed terms of reference throughout the lifetime of the project, yielding a dynamic discussion platform continuously refreshed by new members.

Action 4: Combined workshops with related European projects with SMEs as target audience

Thematic workshops have been organised for SMEs with other European projects. This action has brought together knowledge transfer experts and SMEs involved in EU-funded projects, and provided opportunities to share best practice and add value. Representatives from SMEs are full participants; encouraged to present and engage with the discussions. Significant examples include joint workshops with PathogenCombat (www.pathogencombat.com) on hygiene, DoubleFresh (www.doublefresh.eu) on shelf life of convenience foods and HighQ RTE (www.highqrte.eu) on safety of ready-to-eat meals.

Action 5: Communication with SMEs

In addition to workshops, planned and executed in collaboration with other EU-funded projects, NovelQ outcomes have been disseminated in partnership with 16 other EUfunded agri-food projects via AgriFoodResults. The EU-funded AgriFoodResults network (www.agrifoodresults.eu) has three main objectives:

» Offer innovative and sustainable services for dissemination

» Raise skills of European food scientists on dissemination practices

» Successfully disseminate recent results from agrifood research projects

AgriFoodResults specifically targets SMEs and has helped steer the NovelQ dissemination strategy and define the outputs required by SMEs.

Action 6: Competitive calls for SMEs

The NovelQ consortium opened up to SME members at the project half-way point. Working closely with the European Commission, an action plan for competitive calls was set up including tender description, wide-scale dissemination, short-format proposals, evaluation criteria and independent evaluators. These allow SMEs to become involved as and when previously immature technologies warrant application. Four new SME partners joined the NovelQ consortium under these terms and progress was reported to IAP members using business cases, leaflets, news – letters, PowerPoint presentations, roundtable discussion and website updates.

Action 7: Compact proofs-of-principle

IAP members were also invited to participate in short-term, proof-of-principle testing at NovelQ partner organisations across Europe for one to two days. Novel processing equipment was provided by the NovelQ partner and made available to IAP members who supplied their own food and packaging materials. The results were reported in a short, publicallyavailable leaflet.

Action 8: Company visits to SME

In-house demonstrations of novel processing technologies have proven to be very effective at enticing companies to join the IAP. In Spain, the technology provider, NC Hyperbaric, offered deeper insight into high pressure pasteurisation by showing IAP members their production facilities. Campofrio – a customer of NC Hyperbaric – hosted IAP members for a live demonstration of high pressure processing technologies for meat products. Similarly, Stork BV exhibited pulsed electrical field equipment including the latest aseptic filling lines at their facilities in Amsterdam, and performed a live demonstration at a fruit juice producer, Indulleida S.A. in Spain. The NovelQ Training and Career Development Network – providing training and career-relevant learning oppor tunities for NovelQ young scientists – also visited these companies to become acquainted with research, development and production processes, particularly in European SMEs. For the companies involved, these visits are for developing strategies for attracting future, highly-educated employees.

Action 9: Continuity for SMEs in a dynamic platform organisation

A sustainable action plan for SMEs, beyond the lifetime of the project, is essential to attract and retain their participation. NovelQ has explored how the IAP activities can continue to provide relevant information, stimulate active participation in roundtable discussion and workshops and facilitate interactive meetings between SMEs and potential (multinational) customers. SME-oriented research organisations within NovelQ have initiated the discussions with EFFoST and with the ETP Food for Life to explore how a Europe-wide industry platform might be implemented.

Action 10: Co-ordinated feedback

As one of the final actions of NovelQ, the consortium will provide the European Commission with the ‘10C strategy’ for best practice involving SMEs in EU-funded projects as well as suggesting improvements and new topics which have been proposed by SMEs as topics for new funding calls. The enthusiasm and entrepreneurship of European SMEs is feeding back to the EC, and NovelQ partners believe a sound strategy – such as the 10C approach – will yield positive results for research organisations and SMEs involved in future EU-funded projects.

The involvement of SMEs in NovelQ

Company representatives have given their input for this Special Issue of New Food. It should be noted, however, that the involvement of SMEs, and the cooperation between SMEs and large companies, has led to numerous demonstrations of applied research results during the lifetime of the project.

About the Authors

Huug de Vries

Within Wageningen UR, Huug de Vries has been responsible for the Food Technology Centre (FTC) since April, 2006. FTC focuses on initiation, research and development of novel processing technologies in the food and life science sectors. Huug de Vries is also the Project Coordinator of the European Integrated Project ‘Novel Processing Methods for the Production and Distribution of High-Quality and Safe Foods (NovelQ)’. Previously, Huug de Vries was the Director of Strategy and Commercial Affairs at A&F B.V. and project manager for the development of a sustainable maritime reefer container for transport of perishables. He has participated in projects covering the entire chain from sustainable food production, processing and distribution up to consumption. His PhD research – at the edge of physics and biology – was carried out at the department of Molecule and Laser Physics at the Radboud University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Huub Lelieveld

Huub Lelieveld is President of the Global Harmonization Initiative, member of the Governing Council of IUFoST, Member and Past-President of EFFoST (the European Federation of Food Science and Technology) and the same of EHEDG (the European Hygienic Engineering and Design Group). He is a fellow of IAFoST (the International Academy of Food Science and Technology), a fellow of IFT and has been Chair of the Nonthermal Processing and the International divisions of IFT. At Unilever, he was responsible for hygienic processing and plant design and novel processing technologies. He is the lead editor of ‘Hygiene in food processing’, the ‘Handbook of hygiene control in the food industry’, and ‘Food preservation by pulsed electric fields: From research to application’. He is co-editor of several other books, including the recently published ‘Ensuring Global Food Safety: Exploring Global Harmonization’. He has written chapters for many books and encyclopaedia, over one hundred scientific articles, articles for magazines and presented hundreds of papers, globally.