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© NanoCom Consortium

NMP-2009-1.2-5 Best practices to lower the barriers for commercialisation of

nanotechnology research

NanoCom

Lowering Barriers for Nanotechnology Commercialisation

Barriers and Success Factors; Commercialisation Readiness Scale

Start date of Project: 01 December 2009 Duration: 36 months

Revision: v1.1 Project co-funded by the European Commission within the Seventh Framework Programme (2009-2012)

Dissemination level

PU Public X

PP Restricted to other programme participants (including the Commission Services)

RE Restricted to a group specified by the consortium (including the Commission Services)

CO Confidential, only for members of the consortium (excluding the Commission Services)

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0 DOCUMENT INFO

0.1 Author

Authors Company E-mail

Denis Duret CEA [email protected]

Laurent Thibaudeau CEA

Bertrand Fillon CEA [email protected]

Holger Egger Bayer BTS [email protected]

Jose Vera Agullo Acciona [email protected]

0.2 Document Control

Document version #

Date Change

V01 12/07/2012

0.3 Document Data

Keywords

Point of Contact Name: Denis Duret Partner: CEA Address: 17, rue des Martyrs F-38054 Grenoble Cedex 9 Phone: +33 438 784 996 Fax: +33 438 785 118 E-mail: [email protected]

Delivery Date

0.4 Distribution List

Date Issue Group

mailto:[email protected]

../Configuración%20local/Archivos%20temporales%20de%20Internet/bf203276/AppData/2012/Nanocom/deliverables/final%20public/[email protected]



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Table of Contents

0 DOCUMENT INFO ...................................................................................... 2

0.1 Author ....................................................................................... 2

0.2 Document Control.................................................................... 2

0.3 Document Data ........................................................................ 2

0.4 Distribution List ....................................................................... 2

1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY............................................................................. 6

1.1 Analysis of barriers, success factors and common challenges for nanotechnology commercialization............. 6

1.2 Analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats ...................................................................................... 9

1.3 The commercialisation readiness scale .............................. 11

2 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 13

3 SURVEYS ................................................................................................. 14

3.1 Methodology .......................................................................... 14

3.2 Institutionally funded projects .............................................. 15

3.3 Industrial companies ............................................................. 17

3.4 Barriers: a synthetic view from the two surveys ................ 20

3.5 Success factors and challenges .......................................... 23

4 CLUSTERS ............................................................................................... 27

4.1 Methodology .......................................................................... 27

4.2 Results .................................................................................... 28

5 SWOT ANALYSES ................................................................................... 29

5.1 Methodology .......................................................................... 29

5.2 Results .................................................................................... 29

5.3 Recommendations ................................................................. 33

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6 THE COMMERCIALISATION READINESS SCALE ................................ 34

6.1 The TRL (technology readiness levels) scale ..................... 35

6.2 The manufacturing readiness scale (MRL) .......................... 37

6.3 The marketing readiness scale and barriers ....................... 39

6.4 The organisation and investment readiness scale and barriers .................................................................................. 40

6.5 The global nanotechnology commercialisation readiness scale....................................................................................... 41

6.6 Case study: Photocatalytic additive (from Acciona Infrastructure) ....................................................................... 45

7 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................... 49

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Figure Captions

Figure 1: Distribution of addressed institutionally funded projects ............................... 15 Figure 2: Distribution of success factors ..................................................................... 16 Figure 3: Ranking of categories by Technology Readiness Level ............................... 16 Figure 4: Distribution of answers over country groups. ............................................... 17 Figure 5: Distribution of companies with regard to headcounts ................................... 18 Figure 6: Distribution of Companies‟ Core Business ................................................... 18 Figure 7: distribution of product maturity level ............................................................ 19 Figure 8: Average Impact Factor as a function of TRL for each category ................... 19 Figure 9: Synthetic view of main barriers .................................................................... 20 Figure 10: Evolution of the importance of building blocks barriers as a function of TRLs ................................................................................................................................... 21 Figure 11: Final ranking of the barriers per building block (domain) and associated criteria (detailed barriers)............................................................................................ 22 Figure 12: Key factors for successful commercialisation of nanotechnologies ............ 23 Figure 13: Challenges for entrepreneurs for the commercialization of nanotechnologies ................................................................................................................................... 24 Figure 14: Investors' concerns and decision criteria ................................................... 25 Figure 15: Key success factors for nanotechnology companies ................................. 26 Figure 16: List of clusters and localisation .................................................................. 27 Figure 17: Clusters‟ membership ................................................................................ 28 Figure 18: Clusters‟ application markets ..................................................................... 28 Figure 19: Differentiating features per industrial sector ............................................... 29 Figure 20: Differentiating strengths per country .......................................................... 30 Figure 21: Global SWOT chart for the commercialisation of nanotechnologies in Europe ....................................................................................................................... 31 Figure 22: Global recommendations ........................................................................... 33 Figure 23: The TRL scale (from the Nanocom DoW) .................................................. 35 Figure 24: Technological readiness scale, steps and barriers .................................... 36 Figure 25: The MRL scale (from ref.10) ....................................................................... 37 Figure 26: Manufacturing readiness scale and barriers .............................................. 38 Figure 27: Marketing and communication readiness scale and barriers ...................... 39 Figure 28: Organisation and investment readiness scale and barriers ........................ 40 Figure 29: Schematics of the Global Nanotechnology Commercialisation Readiness Scale .......................................................................................................................... 41 Figure 30: Global scale: Steps to pass in any nanotechnology commercialisation process ...................................................................................................................... 42 Figure 31: Specific barriers in the global nanotechnology commercialisation readiness scale .......................................................................................................................... 43 Figure 32: 3D representation of the roadmap process ................................................ 44 Figure 33: Interaction of the particles with the support ................................................ 45 Figure 34: Determinant factors in the Technology and Manufacturing scales ............. 46 Figure 35: Key points in the marketing scale .............................................................. 47 Figure 36: Organisation and investment key points .................................................... 48 Figure 37: Determinant factors encountered before the market launch of photocatalytic additives from Acciona Infrastructure.......................................................................... 48

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1 Executive Summary

1.1 Analysis of barriers, success factors and common challenges for nanotechnology commercialization

The evolution of barriers‟ perception was studied in relation with the readiness levels of

the TRL (Technology Readiness Levels) scale.

The methodology for the analysis of barriers relied on a set of building blocks grouped

into the following two main categories:

i) Commercial Development Parameters

Technology

Manufacturing

Marketing and strategy

Investment and organisation

ii) Innovation Management & Business Support Policies

Innovation management

Open innovation

Funding policies

Local support

Two surveys (30 answers from institutionally funded projects and 214 records from the

industry) allowed evaluating the evolution of the barrier importance for the two main

categories and building blocks as a function of TRL (technology readiness level), as

shown below.

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Evolution of the importance of barriers as a function of technological readiness level (TRL)

To go further in details, the main criteria responsible of the barriers were ranked as

“detailed barriers” in the following table. The column “domain” ranks the building blocks

from 1 (extremely important) to 4 (moderately important).

Detailed barriers to commercialisation of technologies per domain (building block) importance

Success factors for the nanotechnology commercialisation and common challenges

faced by the companies were also extracted from the surveys. The tables below

present the main results.

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KEY SUCCESS FACTORS

Strong focus on business point of view

Good R&D project management and organised in-house innovation activity

Funding

Collaboration and open innovation

Production establishment

Inclusion of services

Regulations knowledge

Implementation of successful business models

Key success factors for nanotechnology companies

COMMON CHALLENGES

Scientific Background Nanotechnology is strongly science-driven

R&D Cost

Applications Companies (at low TRL) consider finding applications a challenge

Finding the right Team

Time-to-market (often underestimated)

Establishing Partnerships Finding the right partners

Collaborations Working with large companies that have ever-lengthening decision-making cycles

Common challenges for nanotechnology companies

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1.2 Analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

From the cluster survey, 3 main results have been identified and are presented below:

differentiating strengths per country, a SWOT analysis chart, and global

recommendations (see the three following figures)

Differentiating strengths per country

Global SWOT chart for the commercialisation of nanotechnologies in Europe

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Global recommendations

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1.3 The commercialisation readiness scale

The goal of this work has been to set up a nanotechnology commercialisation

readiness scale integrating the 4 building blocks (or domains) which were already used

in the surveys in the commercial development parameters categories:

i) Technology,

ii) Manufacturing,

iii) Marketing and strategy,

iv) Investment and organisation

The four building blocks have been time divided into 7 steps (see figure below), the

market introduction occurring between steps 4 and 5. The commercialisation readiness

scale details the 4 building blocks progress along the time, giving a tool to reduce the

time to market. The approach presented here considers all of the building blocks

simultaneously on a same graph as seen below:

Schematics of the Global Nanotechnology Commercialisation Readiness Scale This approach is a consolidation of well-known tools, such as Technology Readiness Levels (TRL scale), Manufacturing Readiness Levels (MRL scale), Product Life Cycle, etc. and includes the results of thorough discussions with the NanoCom industrial partners. For any of the commercial parameter listed above, the commercialisation process has to progress step by step. The barriers identified by the NanoCom project appear as specific difficulties between some steps, before the market introduction. The market cannot be launched before each step becomes ready. The two following figures give the details of the steps (figure a) and where the specific barriers identified from the NanoCom study are encountered (figure b).

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The Global Nanotechnology Commercialisation Readiness Scale with detailed step description

for each building block (Technology, Manufacturing, Marketing, Organisation)

The Global Nanotechnology Commercialisation Readiness Scale and the main barriers to face

in order to reduce the time to market.

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2 Introduction

This document is a compendium of the main results coming from WP1 and WP2 of the

NanoCom project.

This work package relied on two surveys, the first one covering institutional projects,

the second one addressed to industrial activities. A benchmarking of European

clusters, including interviews, and an analysis of available reports on the subject were

also carried out.

Two main results were then extracted: i) the analysis of barriers, success factors and

common challenges for nanotechnology commercialisation, ii) an analysis of the

strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, per country, per industrial sector,

and at a global level.

Another interesting result concerns the proposition of a new “Commercialisation

Readiness Scale”, thanks to which any project can be situated with respect to the

commercialisation objective, and the efforts to be made quantified in all their aspects.

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3 Surveys

3.1 Methodology

An extensive study of the barriers to the commercialisation of nanotechnologies in

Europe was performed. The study was based on:

i) The interviews of coordinators of 30 institutionally funded projects, and

ii) The answers to a web-based questionnaire addressed to more than 250

European companies involved in nanotechnologies and leading to a

database of 214 answers after checking the relevance of all answers.

The evolution of barriers‟ perception was studied in relation with the readiness levels of

the TRL (Technology Readiness Levels) scale. Section 5 gives more details on it.

The methodology for the analysis of barriers relied on a set of building blocks grouped

into the following two main categories:

iii) Commercial Development Parameters

Technology

Manufacturing

Marketing and strategy

Investment and organisation

iv) Innovation Management & Business Support Policies

Innovation management

Open innovation

Funding policies

Local support

Each of the eight main building blocks included four or five criteria allowing a more

precise determination of the barrier by the interviewed individuals.

Based on the second survey, WP2 (Open innovation model and world best practices)

gave input on success factors and common challenges.

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3.2 Institutionally funded projects

The choice of the projects was made according to their representativeness: having a

good geographic distribution, with a good balance between academic and industrial

management (two thirds/one third), and at a relatively high level of technological

maturity (TRL ≥ 7)1.

Figure 1: Distribution of addressed institutionally funded projects

3.2.1 Success factors All key success factors identified / cited by coordinators can be grouped into four key

categories:

Good representation of the value chain inside the consortium, Disruptive technology /

innovation, Market opportunities identified, and Competitive advantage.

“Achieving to identify market opportunities” is the most common Key Success Factor

identified between all projects analysed (cited 9 times on 10 projects):

1 See part 6.1 for a detailed introduction of TRLs

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Figure 2: Distribution of success factors

3.2.2 Barriers

The ranking of the main categories of barriers as a function of the products or projects

maturity is presented below.

Figure 3: Ranking of categories by Technology Readiness Level

At low TRL (<6) technology and manufacturing are the main barriers, at high TRL (>8)

the marketing is the main barrier. This could be summarized by the two following

comments:

i) The barrier of technology decreases when the project matures,

ii) The marketing and strategy aspects grow in importance at high levels.

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3.3 Industrial companies

3.3.1 Raw data The first task was to filter the raw data in order to yield a usable database. As usual

with web surveys, a portion of non-relevant recorded lines were removed (lack of data,

non-industrial companies …). This operation resulted in a database of 214 records.

Companies were then classified with regard to their “Core business” or “Core activity”,

regardless of their “End market” or “Served market”. As an example, all producers of

nanotubes, nanopowders, nanofibers, etc… were put under “Chemical Industry”.

The obtained company distribution is fairly well balanced across Europe, as shown

below:

Scandinavia; 34

United Kingdom; 14

German Speaking; 37

Benelux; 13France; 21

Iberian Peninsula; 28

Italy; 38

Eastern Europe; 29

Figure 4: Distribution of answers over country groups.

Most companies which answered the questionnaire are SMEs, and half of them are

Small Enterprises (1 to 49 employees, in accordance with the 2003 EU definition).

Only a quarter of the total is composed of big industrial groups. Actually a large

proportion of companies involved in the upstream part of the value chain (nano-

materials, nano-intermediates) are small companies.

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Number of employees

104

49%

43

20%

17

8%

50

23%

1 to 49

50 to 249

250 to 1000

More than 1000

Figure 5: Distribution of companies with regard to headcounts

Figure 6 shows the distribution of companies‟ core business. Most of the companies

who answered the questionnaire are either in the Instrumentation / Manufacturing

sector or in the Chemical Industry.

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Information & Communication

Transportation

Energy

Environment

Construction & Building

Security and Defence

Healthcare & Biochemistry

Chemical Industry

Instrumentation & Manufacturing

Consumer goods

Food

Number of companies

Figure 6: Distribution of Companies’ Core Business

The product maturity levels mentioned are fairly high: most of the companies have

industrial products on the market, as shown below.

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Figure 7: distribution of product maturity level

3.3.2 Results An impact factor was defined as a function of the category ranking in the

questionnaire, and positioned per TRL groups.

Figure 8: Average Impact Factor as a function of TRL for each category

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Figure 8 confirms the same tendency obtained with the institutional projects: at low

TRLs, technology and manufacturing are the main barriers and at high TRLs marketing

is the main barrier, which is statistically significant.

To go further in the analysis, the criteria were studied, giving the following table, where

the most important criteria are in bold and ranked per category.

Low

TR

L

Technological domain

Fundamental understanding

Reproducibility

Reliability

Manufacturing domain Efficiency

Costs

Hig

h T

RL

Technological domain

Fundamental understanding

Reproducibility

Reliability

Marketing and strategy domain Acceptability

Competition

Figure 9: Synthetic view of main barriers

3.4 Barriers: a synthetic view from the two surveys

The results from the interviews of projects‟ coordinators are in accordance with the

results from the large panel of industrial companies which answered the questionnaire.

In Fig. 10, the main trends are indicated by the arrows: As the products or projects

become more mature (i.e. increasing in the TRL level), the importance of technological

barriers decreases and the importance of barriers in the marketing and strategy

domains increase. Manufacturing issues remain always important, whereas investment

and organization domains are less perceived as barriers. Innovation practices

(including open innovation patterns) and funding policies are also important barriers,

whereas local support initiatives (development agencies, clusters, incubators…) are

not perceived as barriers.

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Figure 10: Evolution of the importance of building blocks barriers as a function of TRLs

These main trends emphasize both the high level of technical challenges of

nanotechnologies and the “technology push” characteristics of current nanotechnology

developments: Only when the products or projects become closer to commercialisation

are the issues linked with marketing and strategy rising as most important barriers.

This is often referred to as a weakness for the commercialisation of nanotechnologies.

In contrast, market-pull approaches and market focused developments have been

identified as key success factors for the commercialisation of nanotechnologies. An

investigation of the impact of companies‟ sizes was carried out in order to look for

potential discrepancies between SMEs and large companies regarding the ranking of

the main categories of barriers. No major difference was found between SMEs and

large companies.

The table below gives in a snapshot the overall barrier ranking which emerged from

the study. The main criteria responsible of the barriers were ranked as “detailed

barriers”. The column “domain” ranks the building blocks from 1 (extremely important)

to 4 (moderately important).

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Figure 11: Final ranking of the barriers per building block (domain) and associated criteria (detailed barriers)

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3.5 Success factors and challenges

WP2 (Open innovation model and world best practices) gave inputs to this work, by

processing the industrial questionnaire.

3.5.1 Best Practices and Key Success Factors in Investment and Commercialisation of Nanotechnology

Analysis of the success factor data input by companies into the NanoCom

questionnaire indicates varying priorities across the spectrum. However, a set of

commonly shared factors that seemed critical to success was identified. The same

success factors were also derived from examining the national nanotechnology

commercialisation efforts of several leading countries. Although there is no universal or

„one size fits all‟ solution, all interviews mentioned common factors that can allow

companies to keep sustainable competitive advantages. The list of key success factors

is presented below:

Key Success Factor Comment / Specific focus on…

1. Strong focus on business Attention to marketing and strategy issues

Networking with customers

Inclusion of services in the business model

Emphasis on product added value (not on technology)

2. Organised in-house innovation activities

Specific focus to be paid towards R&D project management

3. Utilisation of local support as a competitive advantage

Incubators, clusters, networks, R&D facilities, development agencies

4. Collaboration and open innovation

At all phases in the product development cycle

5. Establishment of production mechanisms

Focus on product reliability and reproducibility

6. Funding mechanisms No underestimation of funding issues

7. Strong activity around standards and regulations

Investigation of current standards to avoid a situation where commercialisation would be hindered by regulation or safety issues

Participate in the creation of new standards

8. IP protection IP protection as a means to decrease commercialization risk

Figure 12: Key factors for successful commercialisation of nanotechnologies

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3.5.2 Challenges for entrepreneurs in commercialising nanotechnology funded research

Entrepreneurship patterns in different strategic industrial sectors were analysed to

identify common features for the successful commercialisation of technology

developed in large collaborative public funded projects.

A total of 41 interviews were conducted across a wide spectrum of technical interest

and expertise areas, organisation and/or investment fund size and target markets.

The results illustrate that researchers and entrepreneurs do see value in publicly

funded projects. Common challenges across the interview responses are mapped

according to the three key life cycle phases associated with a project. Some of the

findings are summarised below:

Project’s phase Challenges for entrepreneurs

1. Project conceptualisation & design

Entrepreneurs struggle to design a project to fit the topics outlined by the EC

Funding is necessary but is not a sufficient driver for participation. Opportunity for collaboration in areas of interest and with key players in the field is of utmost importance

Finding the right partner is key

Preventative measures around the protection of IP ownership are necessary

2. Project execution Overcome administrative barriers

Researchers and entrepreneurs struggle to meet present EC goals and rigid milestones

3. Activity following project completion

Public agency support is not specifically designed to aid commercialisation

Entrepreneurs also require more flexible funding over a period of time to bridge the gaps between „research‟ and „development‟

Figure 13: Challenges for entrepreneurs for the commercialization of nanotechnologies

3.5.3 Investors’ concerns and key decision criteria Analysis of the investor interviews highlights the fact that investors are ambivalent

about value-added from publicly funded projects. The participation of a start-up in a

publicly funded project is not viewed as a decision criterion for deciding to invest. The

key elements extracted from the investor interviews indicate:

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Investors’ concerns and decision criteria

Comment

1. Management team and Business Model

Investors are drawn to companies with a strong management team and strong business model.

2. Risk mitigation The risks of market acceptance and longer time to market are associated with nanotechnologies.

3. Market potential Interest is in the market potential of the product, not in the technology. Investors have the same expectations for start-ups in nanotechnology as for any other start-up.

4. Expectations from public funding

Start-ups participating in a publicly funded project are expected to use the opportunity to increase their market value. Investors feel disconnected from the EC process in determining the research focus areas that will receive funding.

Figure 14: Investors' concerns and decision criteria

3.5.4 Open Innovation Model for Rapid Commercialisation of Nanotechnology

How open innovation practices and mechanisms can be applied to nanotechnology in

order to improve the efficiency of commercialisation was analysed. It is determined that

in order to tackle the barrier of commercialisation, the broadcast search mechanism is

the most suitable open innovation method to overcome this. Broadcast search aims

towards more directed, target oriented research and also helps to improve matching

between supply and demand of research. Nanotechnology is a platform industry and

thus matching is a crucial element in improving commercialisation.

The key finding from both the questionnaire and success stories is that finding the right

partner to cooperate with is the most crucial element in realising a successful open

innovation strategy. Intermediaries, in particular technology transfer offices and

innovation intermediaries can help to overcome these barriers by acting as a trusted

third party, thus providing standard and easy to use contracts and linking between

partners. However, collaboration is only useful (and will be exercised) if it is mutually

beneficial and this requires (complementary) knowledge and allocation of resources

from partners.

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3.5.5 Summary of results Figure 15 & 16 highlight the key success factors identified within D2.3 - D2.5, as well

as the issues and challenges faced by nanotechnology companies.

KEY SUCCESS FACTORS

Strong focus on business point of view

Good R&D project management and organised in-house innovation activity

Funding

Collaboration and open innovation

Production establishment

Inclusion of services

Regulations knowledge

Implementation of successful business models

Figure 15: Key success factors for nanotechnology companies

COMMON CHALLENGES

Scientific Background Nanotechnology is strongly science-driven

R&D Cost

Applications Companies (at low TRL) consider finding applications a challenge

Finding the right Team

Time-to-market (often underestimated)

Establishing Partnerships Finding the right partners

Collaborations Working with large companies that have ever-lengthening decision-making cycles

Figure 16: Common challenges for nanotechnology companies

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4 Clusters

4.1 Methodology

The classification is based on the analysis of individual interviews of clusters‟

representatives. In order to interview the most significant clusters in Nanotechnology, a

first selection was done. A list of 31 European clusters dedicated to nanotechnology

was first established thanks to NanoCom consortium relationships. Then a selection of

a short list of 12 clusters was done, according to their representativeness and

localisation.

Figure 16: List of clusters and localisation

Interviews of these clusters were based on a specific interview guide, enquiring about

their activities, their markets, and their policies for nanotechnologies. Thanks to this

questionnaire significant information about activities and policies of the clusters

allowed to describe the global position of European clusters concerning

nanotechnology commercialisation.

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4.2 Results

Figure 17 shows that the clusters are really dedicated to industry. A further analysis

shows that SMEs represent the main part of industrial members, with more than 70%.

Figure 17: Clusters’ membership

The application markets addressed by these clusters are various, as presented in

Figure 18, but three of them dominate: Energy, Healthcare & Biochemistry, and

Instrumentation & Manufacturing (with more than 70% of interviewed clusters working

on each of these markets).

Figure 18: Clusters’ application markets

The clusters‟ principal activity is to provide access to development platforms in order to

help their members to develop their technologies and their products. The second one

concerns open innovation, which allows interaction between cluster members and

external partners. Start-up incubation is also a common practice for clusters.

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5 SWOT analyses

5.1 Methodology

The SWOT analyses presented in this section are based on four main inputs:

i. Results from previous work “analysis of barriers” and “success factors and best

practices” respectively chapters 3.2 and 3.3

ii. Further analysis of the NanoCom questionnaire on success indicators in

chapter 3.5

iii. Classification of clusters and their specificities in chapter 4

iv. Recent reports from research companies and governmental institutions.

For each country, recent reports were exploited. Often based on interviews of referent

experts in the country, those reports were instrumental for our study. The main

strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of nanotechnologies identified in the

reports were compared to our findings and analysed through the filter of the

questionnaire‟s results.

5.2 Results

The original deliverable contains detailed SWOT charts per country and industrial

sectors. We will only present here some differentiating features per country, per

industrial sector, and global results. The sectors were chosen according to their

relevance given by the Cluster study.

5.2.1 Differentiating features per industrial sector

Figure 19: Differentiating features per industrial sector

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Based on all the SWOTs, Figure 19 highlights the differences between sectors and the

specificities of each sector. One of the reasons for the specificity of a particular sector

is its position along the nanotechnology value chain. This position is recalled in the first

column of the table.

5.2.2 Differentiating strengths per country

Figure 20: Differentiating strengths per country

Figure 20 gives the differentiating strengths obtained by a differential analysis of all the

SWOT charts.

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5.2.3 Global SWOT chart A global picture can be drawn for the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

of nanotechnologies in Europe. It is presented in Figure 21.

Figure 21: Global SWOT chart for the commercialisation of nanotechnologies in Europe

Factors contributing to the strengths of Europe in nanotechnologies include:

i. The high level of activity in research, relying on recognized infrastructures and

very diverse collaborations between research and industry fostered by the

activity of European. A good support from public funding (EU, national,

regional) that is steadily growing

ii. The ability of European firms to enter new markets, launch new products and

increase sales revenues, thanks to a successful integration of

nanotechnologies, A high level of awareness on the risks and EHS impacts of

nanotechnologies, addressed by an important number of nanosafety programs.

Currently 30 European nanosafety projects are running, representing a total

112 M€ total funding.

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The main identified weaknesses of Europe are:

i. The lack of market driven vision in nanotechnology developments and

research, a general trend highlighted in a number of reports2, and confirmed by

the important score for the “Marketing and Strategy” domain in the NanoCom

questionnaire, both as barriers and as success factors,

ii. Insufficient provision of private investment, with a low percentage of global

nanotechnology venture capital invested in Europe.3

iii. Low patent application to publication ratio as compared with USA and Japan.

Although Europe exhibits high quality research results assessed by a strong

publication activity, it is less efficient than USA and Japan in converting

research into commercial products.4

Opportunities for European nanotechnology include:

i. A large number of potential applications. Nanotechnology is an enabling

technology with applications in most sectors of the European economy

(chemical industry, electronics, energy, transportation, healthcare, textile,

construction).5

ii. Opportunities for cross-sector and interdisciplinary approaches (see deliverable

D2.4, section 3.2)

iii. Active standardisation working groups as led by the ISO Technical Committee

in Nanotechnologies (TC 229).6

2 Lux Research, “Nanomaterials State of the Market Q1 2009: Cleantech's Dollar Investments,

Penny Returns” 3 See “Commercialisation of Nanotechnology – Key Challenges”, Tom Crawley, 2007,

Spinverse,http://www.spinverse.com/documents/NanotechCommercialisation_Helsinki_March07.pdf 4 See ObservatoryNANO (http://www.observatorynano.eu/) “Report 2010 on Statistical Patent

Analysis” “ObservatoryNANO Factsheets - March 2011”, and also M. Morrison, “Innovation in nanotechnology research” http://www.innovationeu.org/news/innovation-eu-vol2-1/0268-innovation-in-nanotechnology-research.html (accessed on Oct 11, 2011) 5 See High Level Group Key Enabling Technologies Working Document and Final Report,

http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/ict/key_technologies/kets_high_level_group_en.htm, accessed on Oct 10, 2011. 6 ISO Working Group TC229, http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_technical_committee?commid=381983

http://www.innovationeu.org/news/innovation-eu-vol2-1/0268-innovation-in-nanotechnology-research.html

http://www.innovationeu.org/news/innovation-eu-vol2-1/0268-innovation-in-nanotechnology-research.html

http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/ict/key_technologies/kets_high_level_group_en.htm

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5.3 Recommendations

Based on the SWOT analysis performed in the previous section, the following

recommendations can be made in order to emphasize strengths and opportunities and

to address weaknesses and threats for the commercialization of nanotechnologies in

Europe:

Figure 22: Global recommendations

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6 The Commercialisation Readiness Scale

The goal of this work has been to set up a nanotechnology commercialisation

readiness scale integrating the 4 building blocks, or domains which were already used

in the surveys (see Section 2.1).

i. Technology readiness

ii. Manufacturing capability,

iii. Marketing, sales and communication

iv. Organization & investment

It has included and used all NanoCom survey results, coming from the institutionally

founded projects, the industrial companies, the clusters, and bibliographic data.

At the end, the results are tentatively used to propose a simple diagnosis and

assessment tool: the involved companies can use it to make an evaluation of how far

from the market a nanotechnology is, and therefore focus their remediation actions to

decrease the time to market.

The commercialization process can be traced on a time scale, which is partly

superimposed with the well-known product life cycle7.The most important point is the

market introduction.

Four scales corresponding to the four building blocks are then introduced and detailed

before their integration in the global commercialisation readiness scale.

The commercialisation readiness scale details the 4 building blocks (maturity of

technology, manufacturing, marketing, organisation and investment) progress along

the time, giving a tool to reduce the time to market.

7 Levitt, T. (1965) Exploit the product life cycle, Harvard Business Review, vol 43, November-

December 1965, pp 81-94.

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6.1 The TRL (technology readiness levels) scale

Already mentioned in part 3 the TRL scale is a reference for the technological maturity

of a product. It has been first introduced by NASA in 19958. It was presented as below

in the NanoCom DoW:

Figure 23: The TRL scale (from the Nanocom DoW)

Level 1 corresponds to a concept, and 9 to a product ready to be commercialised.

Three main domains can be distinguished:

i. Technology assessment & proving (research projects) (from TRL 1 to 4),

ii. Pre-production (from TRL 5 to 6), and

iii. Production implementation (from TRL 7 to 9).

To position the results coming from the NanoCom survey, the TRL scale has been

reduced at the low end to start at level 4, condensed in 4 levels, and extended after the

level 9 to take into account the product life cycle.

Three new levels were added, after a thorough discussion with involved industrials:

i. Expertise acquisition, preparation of 2nd generation

ii. Incremental R&D, definition of 2nd generation

iii. Disruptive or incremental innovation (or exit)

8 John C. Mankins, TECHNOLOGY READINESS LEVELS, A White Paper, April 6, 1995

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At the end, a seven steps scale has been implemented, including the main identified

barriers from the survey.

As illustrated in Fig. 24, fundamental understanding is considered as a major issue at

low maturity levels (TRL<6), well before the market introduction; then, reproducibility

and reliability become important matters at high maturity levels (TRL>6).

Figure 24: Technological readiness scale, steps and barriers

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6.2 The manufacturing readiness scale (MRL)

The manufacturing readiness scale was first introduced by the US department of

Defence9.

Figure 25: The MRL scale (from ref.10

)

It is a complement of the TRL scale, the output of both being a product on the market.

As previously done in section 6.1, this scale has been reduced at low end, condensed

in four levels, and extended after the market introduction in three more levels:

i. Ramp-up management, Optimisation of supply chain

ii. Monitoring yield, Increase production efficiency

iii. Production line termination (recycle or dismantle)

On the final scale, the main barriers identified from the NanoCom study was positioned

at TRL 7/8 as shown by the yellow box in figure 26.

As can be seen, costs and efficiency concerns are the main barrier and approximately

at the same level. These two criteria are important during the pilot line implementation

phase.

9 Manufacturing Readiness Guide, Prepared by the Joint Defense Manufacturing Technology

Panel Manufacturing Readiness Level Working Group, February 2007, http://www.dodmrl.com/

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Figure 26: Manufacturing readiness scale and barriers

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6.3 The marketing readiness scale and barriers

Taking into account the NanoCom results, and following some previous studies10, a

marketing readiness scale has been proposed, in which the post market introduction

phases are superimposed with the well-known product life cycle. The communication

aspects were introduced in the same scale. Once again, the identified barriers were

positioned from the NanoCom study. As before, the content of the different phases

were discussed with industrials involved in the nanotechnology business.

The main identified barriers, almost at the same level of importance, are the

competition and acceptability (yellow box illustrated on figure 27), having to be

overcome one step before the introduction on the market, that means at the ramp-up

forecast steps.

Figure 27: Marketing and communication readiness scale and barriers

10

Lan Tao, David Probert and Rob Phaal, Towards an integrated framework for managing the process of innovation, R&D Management 40, 1, 2010.

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6.4 The organisation and investment readiness scale and barriers

As a final scale to be used in the nanotechnology process of commercialisation, the

NanoCom study has proposed to take into account both the organization and

investment matters. As before, four steps before the market introduction and three

steps after were considered, defined from other studies11 and discussions with

involved industrials. The identified barriers obtained from the survey were positioned.

The organisation and innovation activities, together with project management can

generate important bottlenecks in the overall commercialisation process (figure 28)

Figure 28: Organisation and investment readiness scale and barriers

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6.5 The global nanotechnology commercialisation readiness scale

This scale is a tool to settle a roadmap for any project in nanotechnologies.

The 4 building blocks, or commercial development parameters, are:

i. Technology,

ii. Manufacturing,

iii. Marketing and strategy,

iv. Investment and organisation.

They have been all previously time divided into 7 steps, the market introduction

occurring between steps 4 and 5. The approach presented here considers all of them

simultaneously on a same graph (see Fig. 29). It includes the results of thorough

discussions with the NanoCom industrial partners.

Figure 29: Schematics of the Global Nanotechnology Commercialisation Readiness Scale

For any of the commercial parameter listed above, the commercialisation process has

to progress step by step. The barriers identified by the NanoCom project appear as

specific difficulties to overcome between some steps, before the market introduction.

The steps described in paragraphs 6.1 to 6.4 are all gathered in Fig. 30, which is the

final and global Nanotechnology Commercialisation Readiness Scale.

The NanoCom project has identified specific barriers, which can be superimposed on

the global scale (see Fig. 31).

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Figure 30: Global scale: Steps to pass in any nanotechnology commercialisation process

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Figure 31: Specific barriers in the global nanotechnology commercialisation readiness scale

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The market cannot be launched before each building block, or commercial

development parameter becomes ready.

This tool then can thus be used to

i. Make a status of any nano-commercialisation process

ii. Evaluate the remaining difficulties to overcome

iii. Update the remaining time to market

This is similar to a checkers game, in which the tokens are positioned to make the

status, and barriers are obstacles over the game (see Fig.32 ).

Figure 32: 3D representation of the roadmap process

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6.6 Case study: Photocatalytic additive (from Acciona Infrastructure)

ACCIONA, together with the technological partner TOLSA, has developed its own

additive to make self-cleaning building and infrastructures, with an improved

performance with respect to the commercially available products. The aim is to reduce

the final cost of the photocatalytic materials compared to commercial ones. It will

confer to the construction materials new added value functionalities: self-cleaning, air

depollution and biocide effects. The final applications could be: façades, pavements

(asphalt or precast bricks), concrete urban furniture, network of sanitary and storm

drains, hospitals, etc.

6.6.1 Technology and manufacturing These two aspects were quite coupled in the R&D process, so it is convenient to have

them considered together.

The technology uses Nano-TiO2 particles on Sepiolites support, and it was very

important to get a good understanding of how the pollutants diffuse on the support (it

acts as an absorbent). Then, the pollutants must be placed close to the photocatalytic

particles, and the catalysis steps have to be facilitated.

1a. Difusion of the pollutants to the catalyst or/and to

the support (sepiolites); 1b. Difusion of the pollutants

from the support to the catalyst (close)

2. Decomposition reactions.

3. Difusion of the products (CO2, H2O, SO2 y NO-3).

1. Difusion of the pollutants to the catalyst.

2. Decomposition reactions.

3. Difusion of the products (CO2, H2O, SO2 y NO-3).

Figure 33: Interaction of the particles with the support

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Those aspects emphasize the fact that it was very important to have a good

fundamental understanding.

Further in the maturity level, several aspects were considered to be of high

importance:

i. Reproducibility (lab scale, <kg/day)

ii. Nano-production, pilot line, kg/day

iii. Scale-up investment

iv. Full rate production line, tons/day

v. Real scale application

Safety issues were also considered: nanomaterial from the point of view of activity and

micromaterial from the point of view of H&S issues

The identified key issues are positioned in the technology and manufacturing scales

below:

Figure 34: Determinant factors in the Technology and Manufacturing scales

6.6.2 Market & communication ACCIONA and TOLSA have developed its own additive with an improved performance

with respect to the commercial available products. The aim is to reduce the final cost of

the photocatalytic materials compared to commercial ones. A detailed market analysis

has been done.

Nanotechnology is a reply to a real problem: Municipalities need to reduce NOx

pollution. This aspect needed identification of the customers and meetings with them.

Moreover, the existing competitors were identified, in order to get a good positioning,

and to apply for a good intellectual property.

Just before the market launch, the three following matters were important:

i. Pre-announcement

ii. External communication/trademark

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iii. Broad communication

All these key points are summarized in Fig. 35:

Figure 35: Key points in the marketing scale

6.6.3 Organisation and investment The R&D was developed within a National Funded Project: “Development and

production of innovative materials based on nanotechnology” (Acronym: DOMINO),

involving 15 Spanish companies (large and SMEs).

The total budget was more than 25M € (50% funded).

Several public technological center subcontracted.

At the end of the Project, two large companies were able to produce nanomaterials:

TOLSA SA (a mining company) produces sepiolites (fibrilar clays), knows how to

produce nanosepiolites (top-down process) and knows how to modify them by adding

nanoparticles on their surface.

GRUPO ANTOLÍN INGENIERÍA SA (an automative company) produces carbon

nanofibers (GANF).

Both companies are searching for applications with their nanomaterials. The rest of the

consortium is multisectorial, composed of companies from different industrial sectors

(ACCIONA as a construction company) and they try to use these nanomaterials.

This process led to:

i. Evaluate pilot line investment

ii. Increase, find and involve key competencies

iii. Organise the innovation activities

iv. Take care of the R&D project management

v. Get national funding

Fig. 36 summarises the organisation and investment key points:

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Figure 36: Organisation and investment key points

6.6.4 Conclusions from the case study As shown below, this R&D was completely in phase with the Commercialisation

readiness Scale approach, since it had to go through all the major steps and barriers

identified previously.

Figure 37: Determinant factors encountered before the market launch of photocatalytic

additives from Acciona Infrastructure.

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7 Conclusion

This study summarizes some of the main results of the EU Nanocom project. It has

benefited of several large scale surveys in three communities: institutional researchers,

industrial, and regional actors. The presented results are thus a snapshot of their

expression. They include barriers and success factors.

It has allowed to make a SWOT analysis concerning the commercialization of

nanotechnologies in Europe, and to deduce some recommendations.

Then, based on the approach which was chosen at the beginning of the project by

making a segmentation of the commercialization activity in four building blocks

(Technology readiness, Manufacturing capability, Marketing, Sales and

communication, Organization & investment), a global commercialization readiness

scale has been proposed. It can be used as a “tableau de bord” to decrease the time

to market in the nanotechnology commercialization process. This meta-scale has been

implemented using extensive discussions, especially with the project industrial

partners. It includes the barriers which were quantified thanks to the surveys.

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