FLEXIBLE UNIVERSITY-INDUSTRY COOPERATION IN ROMANIAN PROGRAM INNOVATION CHECKS AS SUPPORT FOR INCREASING SME COMPETITIVENESS

The paper presents the partnership between two technical universities and three industrial companies (SMEs) from Romania based on a government financial support, Innovation Checks (CEC) from Research, Development and Innovation Program, PN-III-P2-2.1-CI-2017. The cooperation was developed as a consequence of a national competition, focused on the knowledge transfer from the university to the industry and launched by the Romanian Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation, which is subordinated to the Ministry of National Education. This competition ensures a flexible tool to support SMEs in the productive sector to modernize technology and increase innovation. SMEs are encouraged to develop partnerships with universities in order to create innovative products and services based on advanced technologies. Innovation checks can be released in any economic or scientific field and will lead to an acceleration of technology transfer between universities, as providers of research services, and SMEs, as beneficiaries of such services. The flexibility refers to the definition of requirements according to the concrete needs of the beneficiary. Because the CEC objective is to support SMEs by funding high-innovation projects with concrete results and real market impact, each CEC project is running 6 months and for one year the economic benefits for SMEs are being pursued. Three projects which demonstrate the successful cooperation between universities and SMEs under CEC competition in the domain of Information Technology and Security are presented in the paper. The first project, “FPGA-based multi-function module for image processing and control in industrial robotics applications” has as research service provider the University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest and beneficiary Company ASTI Control SA (specialized in the field of industrial automation and computer-assisted process management). The main objective of the project was to design and implement a module with open structure, consisting of a hardware part and a software part that allows identifying an object on a conveyor belt and manipulating the object using an industrial robotic arm. The second project was “Multispectral system for environmental monitoring of critical areas in the energy field” and has as research service provider University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest and beneficiary Company SONERG Trading SRL (specialized in software/hardware development in the energy field). The main objective of the project was to design and implement a multispectral system, based on real-time image analysis, for the automatic detection of unauthorized people in areas near some energy objectives. The third project entitled “Smart multisensor network for indoor monitoring” was developed by University VALAHIA from Targoviste as research service provider and Company SIS SA from Bucharest (supplier of solutions and services in the field of industrial automation) as beneficiary. The main objective of the project was to implement an intelligent wireless sensor network, scalable, connected to a remote computer via the Internet or a smart phone. For each project, the implementation team consisted in experienced professors (2) and students (1-master and 2-PhD). The result of cooperation had two impacts: knowledge transfer from the university to the industry (prototype and patents can be considered as outcomes) and the increasing and validating practical knowledge in academic research.