Photo source: official ITTC 15 website
The National Institute of Chemistry, a member of the polynSPIRE consortium, was awarded the Best Innovation with Market Potential for 2022 during the 15th International Technology Transfer Conference (ITTC). The event, organised by the Jožef Stefan Institute (IJS) in Ljubljana (Slovenia), took place on the 12th and 14th of October, with the primary objective of promoting knowledge exchange between academia and industry and of bringing the innovations realised in the context of research labs into industrial exploitation.
The Best Innovation Market Potential Award is assigned on an annual basis during the conference, as the outcome of an evaluation process that takes into consideration a pool of contestants who bring forward business positions of early stages technologies. The commission in charge of the evaluation is composed of a wide array of representatives, ranging from investors to technology commercialisation experts, whose main purpose is to evaluate, from a practical standpoint, the commercial potential of the different technologies.
The purpose of the competition is not only to foster and encourage the commercialisation of innovative technologies but also to boost and increase the cooperation between research organisations and industry. As evidence of the great results that the award achieved in the last years, the pitch competitions already resulted in several spin-out company creations and licensing case developments.
The technology presented by the National Institute of Chemistry “From polyurethane waste to high value added raw materials” (patent application No.: LU501979) was recognised as the best innovation among those presented by public research organisations, thanks to its high commercial potential. The authors are members of the research group of the Department of Polymer Chemistry and Technology at NIC: Maja Grdadolnik, Dr. Ema Žagar, Dr. David Pahovnik and Blaž Zdovc.
For more information, visit the ITTC official website.