Opinion article for Jornal Económico: Innovation and Entrepreneurship – From the Lab to the market

In this article, Marise explains to the reader that turning science into business is, at first a matter of recognizing opportunities and, secondly, being able to realize them.
This process is difficult and time-consuming and requires a multidimensional support infrastructure, a true innovation ecosystem that ensures the identification of opportunities, allows the development of the business and its funding, which basically accompanies the researcher from the laboratory to the market, covering the entire life cycle of a product, from the initial idea to marketing and commercialization.
On this path, there are many barriers that need to be overcome, and Marise proceeds by highlighting a few:
– The cultural differences between academia and business: Scientists, entrepreneurs, and funders need to work more closely together.
– Internalizing risk: recognizing that risk is part of the “game” and recognizing the difference between high risk and unnecessary risk.
– Understanding who the customers are and what they may want
To overcome these difficulties, it is increasingly recognized that the various stakeholders that are needed for the development of this process of knowledge and technology transfer must work together and, desirably, nearby in geographical terms.
Innovation, to work, must have all the ingredients together: people, higher education institutions, research institutes/centers, companies, and funding. This has been Europe’s problem since the ecosystem was never complete, it was always missing pieces in the Puzzle. Though in the last few years, Europe, and Portugal in particular, have put a lot of effort, both in funding mechanisms and in policies production to overcome this situation.
There has been a great development of science and technology parks, in which higher education institutions, research institutions, companies, incubators, and business accelerators meet in the same geographical area, i.e., where all stakeholders of the innovation ecosystem meet. In the Portuguese case, the implementation and development of collaborative laboratories adding another extra dimension to this ecosystem.
The transfer of technology and knowledge thus presents itself as a fundamental growth strategy for innovation and for the sustainable increase of the economic network.
The Board member of The Lisbon MBA Alumni Club concludes her opinion article by stating that Portugal has all the conditions to effectively be a knowledge economy and how we cannot fail to mention, taking into account the current situation in Eastern Europe, the potential contribution of the people who are now arriving in our country: many women, highly qualified, who should be welcomed and inserted in the innovation ecosystem, thus contributing to the sustainable economic growth of our country.
Read the full article (original) in Portuguese here.
Source: Jornal Económico