25 May 2021

Isella Vicini of Warrant Hub  has been interviewed by Distretto Biomedicale to share her experience inside imPURE project. The interview is in italian, here you can find the translation in English:

Distretto Biomedicale is one of the six Italian companies participating in the impure European research project, which received a contribution of about 5.8 million Euros from the European Commission. It is one of the 23 projects selected and funded under the EU Horizon 2020 programme to address the problems that have arisen with the spread of the pandemic from Covid-19 in relation to the difficulty in supplying medical devices.

The project aims to develop a new and extremely flexible production concept using additive manufacturing technology and the most innovative digital solutions including new generation sensors and artificial intelligence.

Impure will involve 19 partners from 8 different European countries, coordinated by the Technical University of Athens. There are 6 Italian companies participating in the project, in addition to biomedical.it district are present Sidam Mirandola, Iungo Modena, Warrant Hub Correggio (RE), Stil Gomma Bergamo and Producta Macerata. With the interview with Isella Vicini, European Funding Development Director of Warrant closes the story of the 5 realities made in Italy.

What does the company do?

Warrant Hub supports business innovation and development processes in every industry by identifying finance opportunities and providing advice. Warrant Hub, formerly Warrant Group, is a subsidiary of Tinexta Group, headquartered in Correggio (RE) and has been operating on the market since 1995. It boasts over 200 professionals and more than 8000 customer businesses.

In 2007, the Business Unit of Warrant Hub European Funding Development (EFD) was established, which supports private and public companies and entities, at national and international level, in the participation and management of research and innovation projects financed by the European Commission. EFD offers methodological and strategic advice for approach and participation in research and innovation funding programmes, such as Horizon Europe and LIFE Programme, in a complete cycle from the analysis of sectoral policies to the conclusion of research and innovation projects. EFD supports its clients and partners in networking, project ideas definition, project planning/presentation, negotiation, management, scientific dissemination and exploitation of project results. EFD also participates directly in European projects with the roles of coordinator and partner for project management, communication, dissemination and administrative support and from this year also with a strong expertise dedicated to “sustainability” and “social engagement”.

The EFD team consists of 17 consultants with many years of experience in European design in different technological domains: health, energy, environment, transport, information and communication technologies, cultural heritage, nanotechnology, construction, are just a few examples. This Business Unit is directly involved in the activities of the impure project.

In the impure project what role do you have and what will be your activity?

After the project presentation process, we are currently responsible for the activities of Network Establishment, Dissemination, Exploitation and Business Planning. This means that we are responsible for all the activities related to scientific dissemination and exploitation of results, we contribute to the definition of the business plan and the creation of a network of European projects and platforms within the same impure theme. Finally, we support the Italian partners as advisors in the activities of Project Management.

What skills are you putting at the service of the project?

Our fifteen-year experience of financial, administrative and organizational management in carrying out the activities of the project. We are also the reference point for scientific communication and dissemination activities and use the technical expertise of our team members to ensure effective exploitation of results.

What is the most challenging challenge you are facing in the project?

the impure plan is born in answer to an extraordinary call of the program Horizon 2020, launch 22 May from the EU commission, with the objective to finance the study of “agile” productive processes in order to quickly reconvert the lines of biomedical molding (in particular masks and respirators) in response to requests for extraordinary supplies to counter the spread of a pandemic. Thanks to the funds made available by the Commission and to the excellence of the Italian companies involved in this project, we will be able to adapt the production lines of medical components hard.

Beyond impure are you carrying out other innovations or have you recently presented them on the market? On what fronts and with what investments?

We are currently involved in 51 research and innovation projects with a total budget of around EUR 151 million. We have achieved important results over the years: the award as the best European project in the field of nanotechnology in 2019 and the award for the development of the best website of a European project in 2020, just to mention the most recent.

The innovations developed in our projects have received several times the approval of the European Commission that invited us to several events and events to present them as best practices; these innovations, however, are not only a virtuous example for research activities but have also aroused the interest of multinational companies that have proposed to bring to the market the results obtained.

What are the professional profiles you look at most closely?

We are very interested in technical profiles, so graduates specializing in scientific disciplines, who have experience in European design or who are eager to meet this challenge, who know how to write a project and who can understand when an idea is innovative and how to decline it in a research project.

In our team there are also experienced professionals in Project Management, another professional profile that we often seek, and professionals in Communication and Scientific Dissemination, activities that we are often responsible for within European projects. We are very open and attentive to new transversal figures: the next seven years of europrogettazione will be characterized by keywords such as sustainability, environmental transition, digitalization, social engagement, social science, scientific dissemination.

We invite all graduate and/or graduate students to pay close attention to these keywords on which our imminent future will be based, both as citizens of the world before and as workers, and to contact us to discuss their dreams. I firmly believe that the professions of tomorrow need to be put on the table today, putting to good use the skills and dreams of the Young Generation.

 

You can find the original interview HERE >>