Promotion

To stimulate valorisation and economic activities around research centres is important for several reasons. Proximity between high quality basic research and more applied research for private sector R&D creates a virtuous circle where research and development issues feed into each other by cross-fertilization. Spin-offs and innovating SME creation related to the local research activities creates specialized jobs hard to relocate. Those companies are also great solution for students work experience. Successful companies become themselves a good element for territory and research laboratories communication and attractiveness.

An opportunity to develop this ecosystem is emerging around software, most precisely free software. Nantes’s region has in free software field a fairly large number of innovative SME well-known at international level. A lot of those companies are already in contact with the research teams and a score of them are grouped under a label: "Free Alliance" to promote a model of development around the open-source. This opportunity is being realized as platform "free software", designed and developed under a contract State/Regions-projects 2007.