Enochip (kit to detect spoilage micro-organisms in the wine production), Centro, Portugal

SYNTHESIS The main objective of Enochip was to develop an innovative technology for wine producers to help detect spoilage micro-organisms (e.g. fungi and bacteria) that contaminate the wine musts (i.e. the juice pressed from grapes before it has fermented) and are responsible for spoiling the quality of the wine. The project was in a first phase to identify the wine micro-flora existing in Bairrada (a geographical area within the Portuguese Centro region), and was in a second phase to develop a user-friendly kit (enokit) for winegrowers to help identify micro-organisms responsible for wine deterioration, so as to enhance the quality of regional wines and to reinforce their competitiveness in the national and international markets. Enochip brought together three partners based in a small town (Cantanhede) of the Centro region: Biocant (coordinator and expertise provider), which is the first technology park entirely devoted to biotechnology in Portugal; the Cantanhede Wine Co-operative (end-user) that has about 1,400 associated winegrowers and is one of the largest wine producers in the Centro region; and the Municipality of Cantanhede. The project was developed around three main activities: 1) identification of the wine micro-organisms present in the wine musts through a metagenomics method (i.e. DNA genetic analyses); 2) the development of a simple technological kit aiming at monitoring the existence of undesirable micro- organisms in the fermentation of the wine musts; and 3) the validation of this kit together with a number of selected winegrowers in order to make it available to the wine market. The direct beneficiaries of the project are the winegrowers of the Centro region who, thanks to the project results, have the possibility of enhancing the quality of their wines through a cheap and easy-to-use tool. Enochip was one the 19 projects funded under iCentro - Regional Programme of Innovative Actions for the Centro Region undertaken from 2006 to 2009. The iCentro strategy focused on the identification of innovation needs of local businesses, which should be addressed by the best expertise and technological strengths available in the region, particularly in geographical areas characterised by low population density and traditional agricultural and industrial sectors. Enochip fits in this strategy by bringing together a regional prominent institution in the biotechnology field (Biocant) and an entity (wine co- operative) operating in the primary sector located outside the main regional urban centres with a specific problem to be solved: the contamination of the winemaking by micro-organisms that are responsible for decreasing wine quality. Apart from undertaking the first ever exhaustive recognition of micro-organisms present in the wine micro-flora of Centro’s sub-region of Bairrada (in fact, it is likely that a similar action has taken place in very few other regions worldwide), the Enochip project has developed and applied an innovative kit to easily monitor the presence of these organisms in the winemaking industry. The project partners believe that the characteristics of the kit are unique in the world. The enokit is a small box that contains small recipients to collect the wine musts and a strip of very small tubes containing the appropriate reagents previously prepared in a laboratory where the wine sample is to be placed. The analyses to identify spoilage micro-organisms can afterwards be rapidly made at any ordinary laboratory (results are known in less than 24 hours). By knowing the organisms existing in the wine musts, the oenologists (or other wine experts) can timely use adequate chemical products to eliminate the spoilage micro-organisms, which contributes to the enhancement of the wines quality and avoids that large amounts of wine production are not used commercially due to its bad taste. The method used through the enokit is extraordinarily faster than the traditional ways of controlling spoilage agents in the wine musts (based on Pasteur’s discoveries) that may take about a week to detect the exact types of micro-organisms. Very

1 often this is too late to avoid low quality wine as it is not possible to timely revert the action of the spoilage agents. Enochip could therefore inspire other regions to promote innovation in traditional sectors such as agriculture or the wine sector. Three main key factors can be pointed out to explain the interesting results achieved by the project: • The scientific and technological capacity of the expertise provider partner that was capable of answering to specific problems faced by the regional economic players; • The involvement of the right partners (cooperative and municipality) in order to convince the wine makers to use enokit, thus persuading a usually conservative public that is not always open to innovations; • The flexibility demonstrated by the RPIA Managing Authority, which was able to concede more funding and time to the project than initially planned. This was crucial to help the project partners to overcome some technological development difficulties faced along the process. The innovative kit developed by the Enochip consortium has considerable commercial potential. Various companies from and outside the region operating in the wine market have expressed their interest in using it. Whilst the process is for the time being at an incipient phase, the project coordinator (Biocant) is considering the best way of industrialising and commercialising the kit in the national and international markets.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION Country: Portugal Region: Centro Full project title: Enochip Duration of project: 01/2007-12/2008 (Application submitted at the end of 2006) Key words: Environmental technologies, technology transfer, wine industry; Funding: total budget: €150,089.03 ERDF contribution: €113,767.48 National budget: €0 Private contribution: €36,321.55 ERDF Objective: Regional Programmes of Innovative Actions 2000-2006

1. PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The objective of the Enochip project was to develop a cheap, user-friendly kit for wine producers to detect spoilage micro-organisms (e.g. fungi and bacteria) that contaminate the musts (i.e. the juice pressed from grapes). These micro-organisms are responsible for jeopardising the wine quality, so the project was aiming ultimately at enhancing the quality and competitiveness of the regional wines in the very competitive national and international wine markets. The main activities of the project consisted of: • Identifying all the local wine micro-flora through a metagenomics approach (i.e. genetic material recovered directly from wine musts samples). This relatively new field of genetic research enables studies of micro-organisms that are not easily cultured in a laboratory, as well as studies of

2 organisms in their natural environment. Thanks to this activity, it was possible to detect the micro- organisms that are present in the local wine musts; • Developing and producing a kit for real-time molecular diagnoses in order to monitor spoilage micro-organisms that are undesirable for the fermentation of the wine; • Validating the kit technology and making it available for the winemaking market. The main beneficiaries of the project are Biocant, as the project coordinator that had the possibility of developing applied research work, and the Cantanhede Wine Cooperative, which had the possibility of testing an innovative solution capable of enhancing the quality of their members’ wines. Ultimately, the beneficiaries are all the winemaking producers of Bairrada (a sub-region of the Centro region), for whom a practical and cheap tool is available to achieve better quality in the production of their wines. The main result of the project was therefore the creation of the enokit, which detects spoilage agents that may endanger the wines quality. The expected impact of the project is to enhance the quality of the Bairrada wines, which are among the best wines of Portugal.

2. POLITICAL AND STRATEGIC CONTEXT

The Centro region, where the Enochip project took place, is one of the seven NUTS II regions of Portugal. Located in the central part of the country, between the two major national urban centres (Lisbon and Porto), the region has about 2.4 million inhabitants (22% of Portugal’s population). It is an ERDF Objective 1 region. The regional economy is rather diversified encompassing predominantly low technology level industrial sectors (e.g. ceramics, glass, cement, forest industries (wood, pulp, paper), and agro-food), and some medium and high-tech sectors such as health services, biotechnology, telecommunications, new materials (particularly the moulds industry), ICT, and renewable energies. The region has quite low population density in the inland areas (except the urban centres located there) in contrast with the coast lands, which are most populated and urbanised areas. Centro has a rather strong scientific and technological profile in the national context, with three public universities and five polytechnic institutes, four relevant technological centres, several private R&D units, and numerous incubators for innovative businesses. However, the region has lacked until recently a cooperation culture among its main economic and social players. In particular, no effective links have traditionally been established between the knowledge centres and the business community, which has hampered the enhancement of the innovation capacity of local companies. Enochip is one the 19 projects funded by iCentro - Regional Programme of Innovative Actions for the Centro Region that was undertaken from 2006 to 2009. iCentro, which was the second RPIA performed in the region (the first was RPIA Centro from 2002 to 2003), had as main mission to boost the interactions among the regional innovation system actors (particularly between the science and business communities), and to promote investment in sectors where the region has competitive advantages, namely thanks to its science and technological strengths. The iCentro strategy focused on the identification of innovation needs felt by regional businesses and the involvement of regional actors with complementary competencies, so as to bring closer together the best expertise and technological strengths available in the region, especially in geographical areas characterised by low population density and traditional agricultural and industrial sectors. Within this context, the iCentro Managing Authority, further to the advice of external experts and the positive opinion of the programme Steering Committee, decided to support Enochip. The project fits perfectly into the strategy adopted by iCentro: it brought together a regional prominent institution in the biotechnology field (Biocant) and an entity (CWC - Cantanhede Wine Co-operative) representing an important regional sector (i.e. wine sector) located outside the main regional urban centres with a very

3 specific problem to be solved: the contamination of winemaking by micro-organisms that decrease wine quality. Biocant is the first technology park entirely devoted to biotechnology in the country. Located in Cantanhede, a rather small town that has approximately 18,000 inhabitants and is traditionally known as an important agriculture centre, Biocant was created in 2005 by the initiative of the Municipality of Cantanhede and the Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology of the University of Coimbra (the largest Higher Education Institution in the Centro region, and the second largest in Portugal). Biocant has currently about 15 shareholders, including municipalities, universities, technological centres, business associations, regional development agencies and other non-profit private organisations. The park, which aims to be an international reference for research and business in life sciences, and to attract national and international investment into knowledge-based initiatives in this field, encompasses a number of different facilities: • The Biocant R&D centre, where specialised research teams endeavour to generate new products and processes. The centre has full dedicated staff and state-of-the-art equipment, and is divided into eight scientific units: Bioinformatics; Cell Biology; Genomics; Microbiology; Molecular Biotechnology; Systems Biology; Tissue Engineering; and Sequencing Advanced Services. Whist having its own staff, these units are in most cases headed by prominent researchers from the two most important universities in the region: the University of Coimbra and the University of Aveiro. The centre provides tailor-made research services for the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, environmental and agro-food industries; • The incubation business centre hosts exclusively companies working in the biotechnology field. For the time being there are as many as 15 companies based in the incubation premises that have generated around 100 highly qualified jobs. Apart from university spin-off companies and other innovative start-ups, these companies include also some of the most known Portuguese firms in this domain; • The park area where public and private institutions can build their own premises dedicated to R&D activities. There are currently plans for the construction of three new buildings to host the Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology of the University of Coimbra (CNC Biotech), a pilot unit for Industrial Biotechnology (BioPilot), and a Virtual Reality Centre (BioCentro)); • The Biocant Ventures that is to invest in biotech projects. Founded by Biocant in conjunction with a private venture capital company, it has a capital fund of about 1 million euros, which is intended to be increased in the future through the participation of other public and private investors. It has already invested in 4 start-ups located in the park; • The Junior Science Centre, which offers young students and teachers the possibility of expanding their knowledge in life sciences, and where the pleasure of learning and doing science is fostered. The Cantanhede Wine Co-operative (CWC) has around 1,400 winegrower members and 36 workers, and covers about 2,000 hectares of vineyards, which makes it the largest wine producer in the Bairrada sub- region (it accounts for about 30% of total Bairrada’s production with a production capacity of about 12,000,000 litres/year). Bairrada is one of the 26 DOC (“Denominação de Origem Controlada”) Portuguese wine regions. DOC means quality wines produced in specified regions under the European Union wine regulations and correspond roughly to the French “Appellation d'origine contrôlée” (AOC) and the Spanish “Denominación de Origen” (DO) classifications. The Bairrada sub-region is spread over 5 Municipalities in the Centro region, including Cantanhede. Located just south of the major Port Wine producing centre of Oporto, Bairrada’s Atlantic-Mediterranean microclimate and its proximity to the sea, together with the clay-limestone soils have contributed to make it one of the most important wine regions in Portugal. The external markets account nowadays for almost 20% of the Cantanhede Wine Co-operative (CWC) turnover, particularly the markets of Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Canada and Africa (especially the former Portuguese colonies). In the extremely competitive national and international wine markets, quality is a decisive comparative advantage. CWC

4 has therefore identified Biocant as a strategic scientific and technological partner in view of the continuous enhancement of the wine production.

3. IMPLEMENTATION

3.1 Project design and planning The idea of launching Enochip started through informal conversations between the Head of Biocant’s Genomics Unit and representatives of the Cantanhede Wine Co-operative (CWC). This dialogue was facilitated as CWC is a shareholder of Biocant and has been one of the most enthusiastic regional players for its creation. It was found out that Biocant’s expertise in the genomics, microbiology and molecular biotechnology fields could address some needs expressed by CWC in order to improve their production activity. Whilst some control of spoilage micro-organisms in the wine industry has been done since the 19th century, this has been based on traditional methods which are not rigorous and take considerable time. The use of these long-established methods to control spoilage agents in the wine musts (based on Pasteur’s fermentation discoveries) may take several days (usually one week), which may be too late to avoid low quality wine, as it is not possible to revert the action of micro-organisms and its consequences in the wine smell and taste. Biocant proposed then to apply its scientific experience in developing a new methodology in order to rapidly (i.e. less than 24 hours) identify spoilage agents in the wine musts, so as to allow timely sterilisation of the musts (the sterilisation decreases slightly wine quality but usually allows its successful commercialisation). The project was selected by the Managing Authority and the Steering Committee of the Regional Programme of Innovative Actions of the Centro Region (iCentro), as it fits very well into the strategy formulated by the programme. One of the main action lines of the iCentro strategy was to bring RTD entities and businesses closer together in order to offer agriculture and industrial sectors the best scientific and technological expertise available in the region. The iCentro programme bodies decided therefore to support Enochip as it was involving a regional key institution in the biotechnology field (Biocant) and an entity (CWC - Cantanhede Wine Co-operative) representing about 1,400 farmers of an important sector for the regional economy that is endeavouring to increase its share in the wine national and international markets. The risk associated to the project can be considered as medium, as Biocant had significant expertise in undertaking DNA molecular diagnoses. Nevertheless, such expertise had never been applied to the wine sector. But whilst the identification of damaging micro-organisms through a metagenomic method (i.e. DNA genetic analyses) would not be a problem, the development of a tool (kit) that should allow a simple, quick and cheap use would be a most difficult challenge. According to the knowledge of the Enochip partners, no similar kit or tool had ever been produced in the country or abroad. This was clearly stated in the application form, so the RPIA Managing Authority knew that there was a risk of not fully achieving the objectives of the project. It was informally agreed among the partners at the project design phase that the commercial exploitation of the kit would belong to Biocant. This was a tacit agreement, as there was no contract signed or written partnership agreement where these aspects were foreseen. The ERDF funding was considered very important as the partners did not find any other financial instrument to apply for. Given the innovative character of the initiative and the uncertain results, the iCentro programme was considered an excellent opportunity to undertake this experience. The partners did not have the financial resources to carry out the project by themselves. At the time there were a number of national programmes to support RTD activities in the framework of the previous NSRF - National Strategic Reference Framework 2000-2006 (e.g. Knowledge and Innovation Operational Programme (POCTI) and the Economy Operational Programme (PRIME)), but these were more oriented to support the development of advanced scientific knowledge and state-of-the-art R&D infra-structures,

5 and not so much to solve specific innovation problems of businesses or to focus on regional development, so Enochip would not be a priority within these programmes (however the partners didn’t apply to them). Consequently, without the ERDF support, the project would have not seen the light of day.

3.2 Management, monitoring and evaluation system With only three partners participating in the project, which furthermore are all geographically located in the same town, the management system of Enochip was simple and somewhat informal. A Steering Group bringing together representatives of all the partners was established, which was composed of four people: Biocant (2), Cantanhede Wine Co-operative (1) and Municipality of Cantanhede (1). The group met formally four times during the project period (i.e. 24 months). However, the members of the group (or at least some of them) met informally more times during the project lifespan. A technical group has been created bringing together nine people responsible for the scientific and technical work (six from Biocant – one coordinator, three researchers and two assistant researchers, and three from Cantanhede Wine Co-operative). A scientific coordinator (Biocant’s Head of Genomics Unit) and a project manager (Biocant’s Head of Financial and Human Resources Department) were selected by the coordinating institution for having significant experience in the respective fields. They were the representatives of the project coordinator in the Steering Group. The role of the partners as regards management was defined as follows: • BIOCANT was responsible for all the main management tasks: coordination of project activities; relationship with the RPIA Managing Authority; reporting (intermediary and final reports to Managing Authority); budget and financial management; organisation of the project meetings; and communication activities (leaflets, participation in events); • Cantanhede Wine Co-operative (CWC) helped mainly with the preparation of project reports and dissemination of project activities among its members; • The Municipality of Cantanhede helped mainly with dissemination results through local fairs and training sessions for farmers. In terms of human resources, the project funded two assistant researchers at Biocant (one working 100% to the project and another one working 50% of his time), and funded three staff members at CWC (one working 20% of his time in the project and the other two 10%). Apart from the two researchers funded by Enochip, Biocant had another four people involved in the project but not funded by it. Apart from the three objectives set by the Enochip partnership (1- identifying the local wine micro-flora, 2- creating a kit for real-time diagnoses in order to monitor fungi and bacteria that are undesirable for the wine fermentation, and 3- validating the kit technology, so as to make it available for the winemaking market), no other main targets or performance indicators have been set within the project. Only self- monitoring and self-evaluation activities were undertaken by the partners through formal and informal meetings taking always as reference the three mentioned objectives. The fact that was a rather small consortium did not bring any particular problems in terms of management. Concerning technological development, the involvement of an experiencing partner helped ensure the smooth progress of the activities. Nevertheless (as further explained below in the topic 3.5), there was a need to change significantly the technology initially planned for the enokit, as this revealed to be expensive. The search for an alternative solution meant that the project would need more time and money to achieve its main objective. There is evidence that the consortium reacted rapidly by rescheduling the activity plan and submitting a request to the RPIA Managing Authority in order to obtain a length extension and additional funding. A quick and positive reply was received from the Managing Authority, which agreed in extending the project for

6 more 12 months and reinforcing the project budget with further extra 50% ERDF funding. This was decisive to keep the project going in the right direction. The change demanded also higher financial contribution from the partners but there was sufficient availability from them to guarantee this investment.

3.3 Governance: Partnership and leadership The partnership was composed by three partners: Biocant, Cantanhede Wine Co-operative (CWC) and Municipality of Cantanhede. The partners had basically the following basic reasons to participate in Enochip: • BIOCANT: to make use of its scientific and technological capacity, to enlarge its experience in the microbiology field and reinforce its role in the regional context as an important technology partner at the service of local businesses; • The Cantanhede Wine Co-operative (CWC): to help their winegrower members enhance the quality of their production through the use of new, cheap and user-friendly technologies; • The Municipality of Cantanhede: to contribute to boost the modernisation and competitiveness of the local economy through the support to one of the most important economic sectors: the wine sector. The role of the partners was defined as follows: • Biocant (project coordinator): expertise provider. It was the scientific and technological partner. Biocant carried out the technical part of the project, namely the molecular study of the wine musts, and the development of a kit to fast monitor the existence of spoilage micro-organisms in the wine. Biocant was also responsible for validating (technologically and commercially) the enokit and making it available for wine producers; • The Cantanhede Wine Co-operative (CWC): end-user. It was responsible for collecting the wine must samples (i.e. the juice pressed from grapes before fermentation). CWC also accompanied the coordinator in all the scientific-technical process, and helped with the development and application of the enokit prototype; • The Municipality of Cantanhede was responsible for the promotion of the project activities and particularly the kit throughout the municipal territory, namely in local agriculture fairs (e.g. Expofacic) and in technical workshops dedicated to the farmers of the region. Its institutional participation as local authority was seen by the other partners as relevant in order to give the project importance in the eyes of the wine producers. The Municipality did not ask for any budget allocation to their activity. These roles did not evolve significantly along the project period and specific new dynamics were not identified.

3.4 Innovative elements and novel approaches to implementation The partners had already cooperated previously in at least one project, so they knew each other quite well. Apart from their geographical proximity, the Cantanhede Wine Co-operative is one of the shareholders of Biocant. No particular new approaches were found regarding the project management, including planning, monitoring or evaluation. The project coordinating entity (Biocant) was created not long time before the commencement of the project (Biocant was effectively started in 2005 and the project was submitted in 2006 and started at the beginning of 2007), so it had not significant experience in the management of such kind of projects.

7 It is however worth noting the involvement of the local authority (i.e. Municipality of Cantanhede) to disseminate the project on-going work and results. This intervention may have been an effective way to persuade the wine producers to use the Enochip kit and gave the project institutional reliability to help convince a rather conservative public that is often opposed to innovations (e.g. 70% of the members of Cantanhede Wine Co-operative (CWC) are over 60 years old). It is also worthwhile to mention a number of communication and dissemination activities of on-going work and results. Apart from public presentations delivered at regional events organised for local farmers (e.g. “Member Day of the Cantanhede Wine Co-operative”) where brochures were handed out to potential interested public, the participation in two international events should be pointed out: • Presentation delivered at the “8th International Symposium of Oenology” that took place in Bordeaux (2007). At this event, which only takes place every 4 years, the idea of developing a kit for the wine industry was very much appreciated. However, as the Enochip project was at an incipient phase, it was not possible to present any mature technology to solve the problem of wine contamination by spoilage micro-organisms; • Participation with a poster entitled “The microbiome of wine fermentations” at the workshop on “Microbial diversity and metagenomics” that took place in Greece (2008). A paper written by the Enochip consortium was published in the workshop proceedings. A number of interesting contacts were established at the event, which has been continued until nowadays.

3.5 Key implementation obstacles and problem-solving practices The main problem faced by the project was a technological one: the development of the enokit. Initially, it was thought that this would be done through a DNA chip (hence the project was at first named “Enochip”) based on a small narrow piece of laminated glass where a sample of wine must would be placed and then inserted into a special equipment (i.e. “High Resolution Microarray Scanner” (exist only four machines like this in Portugal)), through which the spoilage micro-organisms would be identified. It was concluded by Biocant that this process would be commercially unfeasible for two reasons: the lab analyses would be expensive and would only be doable at Biocant that hosts appropriate equipment for this purpose. A restrict number of companies operating in the wine market was heard about this methodology and also agreed that the use of this technology would be too expensive (it was estimated that every lab analysis in order to detect bacteria and fungi in the wine musts would cost around 100 euros). Another method was therefore considered. Biocant scientific staff decided then to use the ‘polymerase chain reaction’ (PCR) method. Through this method, the wine musts are placed into a strip of 43 small PCR tubes, thus allowing identifying more micro-organisms in a much lesser period of time (less than 24 hours). Using this method no special equipment is required to detect the spoilage agents, as the analyses can be carried out at any ordinary lab. Furthermore, the costs of such an operation decrease significantly to about 30 euros per analysis. However, this change implied two very significant consequences: more time and funding were necessary to continue the project. A request was then made to the RPIA Managing Authority in order to extend the project lifespan from 12 to 24 months and to increase the ERDF contribution by 50%, so as to help cover personnel and material (particularly reagents) costs. The Managing Authority accepted the reasons presented and agreed in extending the length of the project and in raising the budget. This was in fact the only project that was allowed to increase the budget among the 19 projects funded in the framework of the RPIA iCentro, which demonstrates that the Managing Authority considered the project as being relevant for the region.

8 4. PROJECT RESULTS

The fermentation of wine musts is a complex biological process that is carried out by several micro- organisms existing in the grapes and in the wine cellars. Some of these organisms are important for an adequate wine fermentation and contribute positively to its organoleptic characteristics (e.g. taste, smell (bouquet) and sight), whilst others generate metabolites (i.e. small molecules) that jeopardise those characteristics. So far, none exhaustive characterisation of the particular micro-organisms existing in the wine micro-flora of the Centro region had been undertaken (or in any part of the country) and a technology to easily monitor the presence of these organisms had never been developed and used. The Enochip project was therefore, on the one hand, to identify the specific micro-organisms (e.g. bacteria and fungi) of the Centro region that are responsible for spoiling wine musts and for grapes deterioration, and to develop on the other hand technology (enokit) with direct and extensive application in the oenology market, thus contributing to the enhancement of the regional wines competitiveness in the domestic and international markets. It is important to underline that the enokit produced by the project can be considered as very innovative. According to the project management team, no other similar tool is known in the world. The enokit is in fact a small box that encompasses two small recipients to collect wine musts and a strip of 43 very small tubes containing the appropriate reagents previously prepared by Biocant where the wine sample is to be placed. The analyses to identify spoilage micro-organisms can be easily, cheaply and rapidly (results known in less than 24 hours) made at any biology or chemistry laboratory. By knowing exactly what types of organisms are present in the wine musts, the oenologists or other wine experts can timely use adequate chemicals to eliminate the spoilage agents. The enokit was already successfully experienced in wine musts obtained from the grape harvests of 2009 and 2010 carried out by Cantanhede Wine Co-operative (CWC). Biocant is now preparing its commercialisation to the market. Several winegrower companies (including CWC) have already expressed interest in using the enokit from now onwards. The low cost of the kit makes it accessible to any wine producer, including micro firms and individual farmers. The kit also allows to increase considerably the wine production efficiency (large amounts of wine don’t have to be thrown out because it is always possible to quickly eliminate undesirable micro-organisms), and to enhance the wine quality since its taste is not jeopardised. Enochip can also be shown as an interesting example of how to promote innovation in the agricultural sector (i.e. wine sector) and how to mobilise the ultimate beneficiaries. Through the selection of the right partners, the project demonstrated capacity to influence the demand side of innovation and to facilitate the access of traditional SMEs (including individual farmers/winemakers) to innovation services. Another relevant achievement of the project was to make possible that new knowledge entirely developed in the region could be effectively used by the regional actors, which is a competitive advantage for the local economy. The fact that this knowledge (i.e. enokit) can be commercialised in other national and foreign regions can also be seen as an asset for the region and its economic actors.

5. SUSTAINABILITY AND TRANSFERABILITY

Whilst the process is at the moment at an incipient phase, Biocant is studying the best way to industrialise the enokit and commercialise it in the market. Various companies from and outside the region (including abroad, namely in France) operating in the wine market have expressed their interest in purchasing the kit. As a similar product is not known elsewhere, foreign markets are also being considered to be addressed at a later stage. For this purpose, Biocant is also searching for the right commercial partners. The enokit is very innovative in the wine market and is potentially of high commercial value. Nevertheless, the danger of this product being copied, developed and commercialised by other entities

9 exists. The patentability of the kit would be possible but Biocant representatives are afraid that the dissemination of the disclosure form could give sufficient hints that could lead to the development of an identical product by others. Regarding non-technological issues, Enochip could be of interest to other regions, particularly those that share similar social and economic characteristics with the Centro region (e.g. uneven distribution of population throughout the territory; diversified economy with low technology level industrial sectors but also with some medium and high-tech industries and services; and good scientific and technological base but traditional lack of cooperation between the knowledge centres and the business community). The project can be seen as an interesting example of how to raise awareness on innovation in a traditionally conservative domain as it is the wine sector, and how to involve influential organisations to persuade farmers and winegrowers to adopt innovations.

6. KEY SUCCESS FACTORS AND LESSONS LEARNT

The following key success factors can be pointed out as regards the Enochip project: • Scientific and technological capacity of the coordinating institution (i.e. Biocant) and its ability to meet the needs of the local primary sector business. This was definitely not another R&D project seeking additional funding but was instead an initiative to answer to concrete problems faced by regional economic actors.; • Flexibility shown by the RPIA Managing Authority. More funding and time were necessary to continue the project and this was made possible by the RPIA Managing Authority, which was decisive to the success of the project. The Managing Authority was seen by the Enochip consortium as an “extra partner” due to the fruitful collaboration established along the project period; • Involvement of the right partners (wine cooperative and municipality) in order to convince the wine makers to use the enokit. This made possible to influence a traditionalist public that is not easily open to innovations.; • Informal and easy collaboration among the partners, simple management mechanisms, and the inclusion of an intermediary organisation that rapidly spread the results amongst final beneficiaries. As the final beneficiaries are winemakers, it was important to involve a wine cooperative with hundreds of members which greatly facilitated the dissemination of the project results and contributed to the efficiency of the project.

CONTACT DETAILS Ms Mariana Brandão Biocant Park Núcleo 4 – Lote 3 P – 3060-197 Cantanhede Tel.: +351 231 419 040 E-mail: [email protected]

Date of the information: 15 September 2010

This case study has been prepared by Technopolis Group on behalf of the European Commission in the context of the study "Policy lessons from experimentation with regional programmes of innovative actions". The contents and views expressed in this case study are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of the European Commission.

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