BioRN is an award-winning biotech cluster from Germany
The Biotech Cluster Rhine-Neckar (BioRN) is home to 60 SMEs with 1700 employees, three global companies with 17 500 employees and several scientific institutions specializing in personalized medicine and cancer research, all located within a 30 km radius.
What is the reason behind the success of BioRN, winner of the German leading-edge cluster contest? In the opinion of Managing Director Dr. Christian Tidona the commitment of a few key individuals is the reason: "Having the important people from various backgrounds - business, public sector, academia and finance - is a crucial prerequisite for success," he said. "These few individuals are the ones that drive BioRN forward."
This is reflected in the Supervisory Board, which is relatively small and consists of only five people, but includes the major regional players. The delegation remarked that consensus does not always drive things forward. There have to be tight-knit dedicated experts, who can agree on the common goal.
Scientific institutions are situated on the campus Neuenheimer Feld in Heidelberg. BioRN is currently developing an entire life science city in close proximity to the Neuenheimer Feld, to enlarge the current facilities, including apartments for employees and even daycare centers. The idea is to offer companies and their employees an environment where everything is readily available.
When offering funding for companies BioRN has had certain conditions for applicants. Economic growth is an important issue. For example, everyone who applies has to prove they can meet their goals and commercialize their product within a specific timeframe. Progress is evaluated regularly to see that the companies can meet the requirements. BioRN developed its evaluation indicators with the help of Bob Breault, member of TCI's Board of Advisors.
Using web-based tools in cluster management
“Typically, people have their information on Excel sheets or Word documents. No one has a general picture,” Tidona said. To facilitate evaluation, BioRN created a customizable web-based tool for cluster management together with its technological partner Meditcon Gmbh.
Dr. Daniel Kapfer of Meditcon demonstrated the program to TCI Secretariat. For cluster managers, the tool offers a graphical overview of the geographic concentration of a cluster. The cluster manager can easily include in or remove cluster partners from a list, which is directly implemented into a map: It shows all cluster partners and the circle representing the smallest area in which all partners are located. Cluster metrics such as area of cluster, density of cluster, cluster partners (name, branch) are generated automatically and listed in the legend providing an overview at a glance. A "survey function" enables the cluster manager to invite companies to participate in online surveys for cluster benchmarking. Results can be translated directly into graphs and reports. For cluster partners, the tool facilitates detailed project and finance management: Each work package, task and milestone can be directly assigned to its costs. Everyone, from researcher to the financial controller, has access to the specific information. Actions and developments can easily be reported with one mouse click.
Participating in the visit were Dr. Christian Tidona, Thomas Kischlat, Dr. Söhnke Voss and Dr. Armin Pscherer of BioRN Cluster Management GmbH, and Dr. Daniel Kapfer of Meditcon GmbH. They were hosted by TCI President Alberto Pezzi and the staff of TCI Secretariat.
19 March 2010
