Who we are

Our mission is to supervise and coordinate the innovation support network for the Brittany area and to provide a link with the rest of Europe. We also have a support and advisory role to both local government and to businesses in research and innovation.

Our team is composed of 15 people whose role include communication, project management and support to policy elaboration.

An important part of our activity is promoting Brittany’s innovation potential throughout Europe and beyond. For many years we have been an active partner in different European projects.

What we do

1- Bretagne innovation supervises and coordinates

The Breton innovation network made up of around one hundred advisors from techno parks, research centres, whose task is to identify and formalise the needs of companies.

The network of 17 centres for technological innovation which provide diagnostics in technological needs and assist in the development of new products and processes within SMEs.

Bretagne Innovation is also part of the Enterprise Europe Network and deals with facilitating technological partnerships in Europe.

2- Bretagne Innovation : an expertise in communication for all the partners

We provide an internet news service and web platform for the players in the Brittany innovation scene. The public can subscribe to the news alerts and get the latest information on national and European programme calls, conferences, trade fairs and other newsworthy events. We make studies and publications available on-line.

Bretagne Innovation organizes several events involving the Breton innovation network such as "Semaine de l'innovation en Bretagne", "CAPBIOTEK", "IDDIL", "SIAL".

 We also produce a quarterly full colour magazine containing testimonials, special reports and practical information.

3- Assist companies in their innovation process  to become more innovative.

Regional government funds are managed by BI and go into specific measures for businesses. This includes a financial mechanism for SMEs to benefit from advice and skills from out-sourced consultancy. Another scheme run by BI for the regional government is grant-in aid for final year students who introduce new skills into companies which take them on during a placement.

We also organise training seminars and participate in trade fairs and other similar events.

4- Observation & Benchmarking : The strategic frame agreement for innovation

We have an advisory role in the elaboration of regional policy regarding innovation and have actively worked on the Strategic frame agreement for innovation adopted end of 2008 which represents Bretagne's innovation policy roadmap for the coming years.
BI is in charge of the following-up and monitoring of the action plan included in the strategic frame.
We also participate to EU projects in order to perform benchmark with other European regions (Scinopoli project, Atlan-kis project - see below)

Current European activities

Since 1995 one of our missions is to encourage businesses to get involved in European research and development programmes and we do this through different activities.

o Raising awareness of what can be gained from working on a European level.

o Monitoring programme developments and project calls and relaying this information. This includes the organisation of info days on the FP7 and Interreg programmes.

o Partner searches and networking events through the Entreprise Europe Network : www.entreprise-europe-ouest.fr

We are also involved in a number of European projects such as the Framework Programme or Interreg.

Erik ACTION (2008-2010) – interreg project – enhancing the effectiveness of regional development policies in the field of innovation and the knowledge economy.

AT-Clusters (2009-2010) – interreg project within the Atlantic Area – supporting internationalisation of regional clusters

Atlant-kis (2009-2011) – interreg project within the Atlantic Area – enhancing technology, knowledge transfer and innovation processes of SMEs.

ShareBiotech (2010-2012) – interreg project within the Atlantic Area – Sharing life science infrastructures and skills to benefit the Atlantic area biotechnology sector.

Scinnopoli SCannin INNOvation POLicy Impact (2010-2011) - interreg project - improving regional practices and tools related to innovation policy monitoring and evaluation.