>> Nanotechnologies

• Cooperation among the companies functions quite smoothly along the lines of the value-adding chain, especially at the beginning of the value chain. As a result, valuable partnerships evolve that enable products of internationally outstanding quality to be manufactured. Cooperative efforts of the companies in joint research projects with universities also function smoothly and are deemed successful by the majority of participants. Nevertheless, the fear of competition is noticeably high. This leads to a degree of reticence. The consequences of such reticence and a resolution focus on one´s own activities lead to the observation that the same, or similar, technologies are being developed at various sites in Switzerland. However, the supposition can be made that, through increased transparency among the given companies, redundant development efforts - and thus the squandering of valuable resources - could be reduced.
• At younger companies there are signs of a cultural change taking place in the direction of greater transparency, a situation that hopefully will lead to successful cooperative efforts also in regard to development projects. On one hand, this could be attributable to a younger generation of entrepreneurs who, already during their school years or in their earlier professional activities, have come to learn and appreciate the positive effects of cooperation. When it comes to companies that have acquired outside financing, on the other hand, another key element is most certainly the obligation to provide transparency in the financial sector as imposed by the provider of capital or also the SWX New Market.
• Cooperation between companies and universities is fostered via a number of federal initiatives, for example by conducting the Swiss Priority Programs of the Swiss National Research Fund. Micro- and nanosystem technology was supported from 1996 to 1999 with CHF 15 million (about EUR 10 million) in annual funding. Substantial contributions emanate from private sources (contract research, cooperative ventures with companies), and the trend is increasing. Roughly 80 companies and 31 institutes of higher education participated in these programs. The TOP NANO 21 program is an initiative of the FIT(Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology) Board and has the goal of furthering activities in the research and application of nanotechnology. Cooperative projects, headed by the Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI) are in the process of being carried out between universities and industrial partners over the period 2000 through 2003. Due to fact that a lot of supportive and cooperative activities take place during the past years in Switzerland, not only between university and research but also with established industry partners, the Swiss Micro- and Nanotechnology industry presents itself as highly competitive and dynamic even in a global context. We can confirm that a lot of pioneer works came out of Switzerland including fundamental and applied research (e.g. IBM research lab in Rüschlikon) and cooperation models between different players along the value chain (e.g. APTE Association).
• The random sampling represented by the survey of companies brought to light the fact that the growth of many small- and medium-sized high-tech firms is privately financed. In the case of start-ups, there are however also renowned multinational companies such as Intel that can contribute to the reputation of a young company by providing early stage investment. Young firms seeking outside financing turn to venture capitalists during their early phase of growth, investors who in turn not only provide them with financial means, but also entrepreneurial support. However, the latter is in many cases still deemed to be somewhat lacking in quality. There is great room for improvement in this regard. Venture Capital companies to a certain extent have recognised that contacts with universities have to be established and nurtured in order for them to fully assess the market potential of a given technology. Such a close bond between universities and venture capitalists is not considered desirable in many quarters because the financial self-interest and the insufficient level of industrial know-how involved pose the threat that start-up companies with little commercial promise will be founded.

• As mentioned above, there exists a “mega” gap in the Nanotechnologies segment. The lack of the value stage “Application” makes it tremendously difficult to forecast anything concerning business realisation. This circumstance makes it quite impossible for venture capitalists to evaluate risks and chances of technologies and potential start-up. The prerequisites for receiving venture investments are the realistic presentation of a business which shows attractive returns in an acceptable timeframe (normally 3 until 7 years). Investors not only want to target their possible returns but also to know their exit means, which normally will be reached by IPO (Initial Public Offering) or trade sales (sell the company to an established corporation).
• Long-term researches demonstrate that an innovation cycle (period from the start of fundamental research to commercialisation) takes in most of the cases over 20 years. In the case of nanotechnology, the first product will be sold in the year 2012, if we take the year 1991/92 as starting point (e.g. IBM nano-letters) which demonstrates again that we are still far away from business realisation. Nevertheless, we are convinced that nanotechnology will have a tremendous market potential in the future and, if appropriate applied, will change the world. Astonishingly, even if we are in the research phase and the discussed topics are still technical and theoretical, there exits a high awareness in the society.
• However, the first milestone in this segment should be to cluster this widespread potential of innovation options in possible future application themes. From our point of view the single topic should afterwards be developed and improved from different experts along the value chain which includes technical researchers and developers, material, process and product engineers as well as manufacturer and marketing specialists (in order to find out the market potential of the application). To do so the necessity of intercompany cooperation and interdisciplinary networks is obvious. We are convinced that a focused cooperation system will decisively support the future business realisation of nanotechnology developments.
• Even if co-operations and networks are an excellent way to bridge the gap between research & development and the specific requirements of the consumers, they bear the problem to be less efficient concerning time consumption and manpower. An alternative is the development of new job profiles or education programs, which cover the above-mentioned bridge. This kind of new professionals will be able in the future to deeply understand consumers´ needs with the competence to overview the possible solution in a state-of-the-art manner.