The new CERCA System Technologies catalogue is displayed on the Wellspring platform
The CERCA Institute has collected data on 58 products and 157 spin-offs from CERCA centres on the Flintbox platform. This is one of the leading marketplaces for commercialising technologies, especially in the US and Asian markets.
What is Flintbox?
Flintbox, a technology from the transfer expert Wellspring, enables us to organise a catalogue of technologies from CERCA centres. It also gives us access to the AIM Marketplace of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM, a worldwide network of tech transfer offices), aimed at the North American and Asian markets.
We are developing the catalogue in conjunction with the centres. We maintain the files for spin-offs and projects that have received support from the Gínjol patent fund while the transfer manager for each centre manages all other technologies they may have.
How many files are there right now?
At the moment we have two complete catalogues. One contains the 60 projects of the Gínjol patent fund and the other the 157 CERCA centre spin-off companies, and we are also working on a new catalogue of scientific platforms. All of them can be viewed in the “Portfolios” section.
The spin-offs are linked to ACCIÓ’s StartupHub Catalonia database, which we are also working with, so the two databases will be complementary.
What is the plan for incorporating the centres’ portfolios?
We are currently working with the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ) and the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) to incorporate their catalogues as a pilot scheme. Once we get the go-ahead, this will be extended to the rest of the centres.
How is the information updated?
Each catalogue is maintained by the person in charge at each centre. We do this in the case of spin-offs and Gínjol projects, although the centres can update the data whenever they wish.
The portfolios of each individual centre will be maintained by their transfer units. Each file has its own person in charge, a sort of product manager. The final aim is to work together on organisation while distributing maintenance.
In the working group set up with the centres, we have jointly decided on the basic organisation of the information. We are now working on the categories and keyword ontology, which is an on-going project.
What can we expect?
We have implemented an idea that was activated a few years ago on paper but was difficult to maintain. This tool makes it easier. The idea is simple: a catalogue of CERCA Centre Technologies.