Successfully held the event “IBMCP-Companies: Technology at the service of agriculture”

More than 280 professionals from the agri-food business sector, researchers from the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology of Plants (IBMCP), and experts in R&D management from public and private entities gathered last Tuesday, May 7, in Valencia to share the main advancements in biotechnology and its possibilities for maximizing production and improving the quality of agri-food products. The event “IBMCP-Companies: technology at the service of agriculture,” held in the event hall of the Blue Cube at the City of Innovation, was organized by the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology of Plants (IBMCP), Cajamar Cooperative Group, and the Technological Platform for Plant Biotechnology (BIOVEGEN).

The director of IBMCP, Pablo Vera, the coordinator of BIOVEGEN, Gonzaga Ruiz de Gauna, and the territorial director of Cajamar, Eduardo Holgado, opened the meeting where the need to more effectively exploit the scientific excellence of IBMCP in the area of Plant Biotechnology and Genomics was discussed, with special relevance to the agri-food sector, in order to efficiently promote technology transfer in the sector. The leading positions that Spain, and particularly IBMCP, holds internationally in terms of outstanding scientific contribution are not aligned with the practical use of this knowledge, nor with the limited subsequent development of technological applications, or the commercial exploitation of those technologies.

In this regard, Pablo Vera pointed out that “we are aware that the ability to generate knowledge and to discover novel and outstanding aspects regarding vegetable crops has not been accompanied by an effective technological transfer to the productive sectors most closely related to the exploitation and commercialization of our technologies; nor by a better utilization of our scientific achievements, our services and facilities, and our know-how and research excellence. Therefore, he emphasized that “the objective of the IBMCP, which has demonstrated an enormous capacity to generate extraordinarily high-quality knowledge for 25 years, is to offer our technological offer as well as all our support to foster fruitful collaborations between our researchers and the agri-food companies, and that, with this, we strengthen together the development of the Bioeconomy as a source of growth and wealth generation for our country.”

For his part, Eduardo Holgado explained that the day “adds to the various actions that the Cajamar Cooperative Group develops to promote the culture of innovation and cooperation between companies and researchers in order to adapt the latest technological developments to the reality of our field, fostering value generation, increasing productivity through sustainable practices and the efficient use of the resources at our disposal.”

In his speech, Gonzaga Ruiz de Gauna specified that “we are witnessing a paradigm shift in the R&D+i system. It is no longer just about generating a scientific contribution of international quality, of which IBMCP, as a reference research center at an international level, is a clear example, but about making that science profitable and ensuring that part of it returns to society by improving the economy through companies, providing them with more and better technology, making them more competitive and generating more jobs.”

The event, sponsored by Bayer Crop Science, Idai Nature, Syntech Research, Valgenetics, Caudal Extruline Systems, Fisher Scientific, Uvat Bio, Kaudal, Probelte, Durviz, and Eurofins, featured two IBMCP-Company sessions dedicated to presenting the wide technological offerings of the Valencian research center and the technological demands of 10 companies in the agri-food sector. Additionally, a session on R&D management and financing was held aimed at presenting the available public and private financing options within the R&D ecosystem and the government support for these types of initiatives aimed at fostering technology transfer and Science-Company collaboration as a key mechanism for competitive improvement.

Furthermore, over 160 bilateral meetings were held between IBMCP researchers and companies in the sector to analyze collaboration possibilities and R&D projects.