Business creation: CNRS chalks up its hundredth start-up

Paris, June 26, 2002

For the 100th business creation resulting from the 1999 law on innovation, CNRS invited the researchers who have become entrepreneurs to present innovative projects resulting from their work at an event held on June 26, 2002. Claudie HAIGNERÉ, French minister for Research and New Technologies, opened this event which bears witness to the dynamism of CNRS as regards added value and technology transfer in all scientific fields. Scientific heads, partners from industry, and investors manifested their commitment to extracting added value from research.

Geneviève BERGER, Director-General of CNRS, recalled that opening up to the socio-economic world is a priority for CNRS. Extracting added value from its research work has, in recent years, come in the form of new intellectual property focuses and emergence of innovative businesses.

CNRS strategy is based, in particular, on increasing the number of patents that are directly useable and on increasing the amount of the license fees generated by the technologies transferred. For two years now, CNRS has been developing co-ownership of the results of research conducted under partnerships with industry, while preserving the interests of its researchers designated as being inventors (566 patent applications filed from 1999 to 2001, as against 290 during the preceding three years).

In addition, CNRS is participating actively in the national scheme for helping to create innovative businesses by granting them 30% of the licenses signed in 2001, and by taking out shareholdings in 13 of them.
With 104 businesses created since 1999, CNRS has been behind nearly 600 job creations, 76 researchers have been directly involved in creating these businesses, 41 operating licenses have been granted, and 39 research contracts have been signed.

Geneviève BERGER wants CNRS to broaden its sphere of action further and is launching the Club des Investisseurs (Investors Club) and the Club des Entrepreneurs (Entrepreneurs Club). These clubs should facilitate the development of business startups, and should participate in removing partitions between the business world and the research world.

The Director-General also wants to stimulate this enterprising spirit among her researchers by setting up in the near future at CNRS a competition for ideas for innovative business creation, open to all scientific disciplines (health, information and communication technologies, multimedia, biotechnologies, biomaterials, micro-technologies, the environment, etc.).

Press contacts
Stéphanie Bia
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e-mail: stephanie.bia@cnrs-dir.fr

Magali Sarazin
tel: +33 1 44 96 46 06
e-mail: magali.sarazin@cnrs-dir.fr