Page 117 - Biorefinery 2030 Future Prospects for the Bioeconomy (2015)

1 Challenges for the White Biotechnology Centre of Excellence (CEBB) 85

1.2 The Public-Private Partnership

Managing a public and private partnership under the same roof (for the Chairs
making up the CEBB) and with the ARD staff is another necessary condition for the
successful development of synergies. The Chairs belong to the same academic
tradition, and are mostly financed by public funds, Foundations and their schools;
whereas ARD is a private company, and a subsidiary of two agricultural
cooperatives.
It will thus be necessary to develop framework agreements and then individual
agreements (project by project) to regulate how each Chair will be remunerated in
proportion to its contribution. At present (2014), more or less formal bilateral or
trilateral agreements, (for example those between ARD and the Ecole Centrale and
NEOMA BS chairs) show the way to go forward and are the catalyst for larger scale
projects. In the long term, we can envisage genuine joint ventures between different
actors for significant projects, including outside partners.
Apart from the founder members, the CEBB will also have to include, at least
temporarily, firms created by the incubator. They also are profitmaking companies
and need to protect their secrets, and yet must cooperate and benefit from the CEBB
ecosystem.
This juxtaposition of projects and interests is the source (and the result) of a
proliferation of interactions (among this scientific and industrial community), but it
is also a potential source of conflict and failure. It will thus be essential to set up an
appropriate governance structure.

1.3 Governance

Finding a suitable governance structure for the innovation platform is a different
challenge from the issue of the governance of the biorefinery itself. We will discuss
the latter issue in a subsequent section. However, the governance of the innovation
platform is also an important question.
Given the ambitions and challenges faced by the platform, the solution chosen
and its degree of formalism will not be without its significance for the result
(a retroactive loop?). Indeed, if the fact of sharing a site and personnel seems
relatively easy to manage jointly (free agreement between the occupants, charitable
status, joint possession), It will probably be necessary to create a legal entity to
achieve a number of specific objectives:

– Tender for joint research contracts.
– Acquire joint material resources.
– Manage a joint image, reputation and intangible assets (brands, website,
protocols and procedures), including joint scientific publications.
– Organise visits to the biorefinery, joint events, local public relations.
– Provide financial resources or contributions in kind for innovative start-up
companies.