Final Conference, 15-18 December 2011, Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation
On December 15-18, 2011 the MERCURY Final Conference was organised by the project partner, Southern Federal University (SFedU), and took place in Rostov-on-Don.
The three-year project MERCURY is coming to its end in January 2012. In order to sum up the achieved results, to round up the project activities, and to dignify each partner’s contribution to the successful MERCURY implementation the consortium gathered on the Final Conference in Rostov-on-Don.
The Final Conference was open for public and welcomed numerous members and guests of the Southern Federal University. The agenda of the Conference consisted of two parts: (1) presentation of the project results as well as (2) closing and discussion of the MERCURY sustainability and perspectives. The first part of the Conference was opened by Evgeniy K.Aydarkin, senior vice-rector for research and innovations (SFedU, Rostov-on-Don, RU), and Jörg Scherer, managing director of the European Research and Project Office (Eurice GmbH, Saarbrücken, DE). In his opening remarks, Mr. Aydarkin stressed the significant contribution of the MERCURY project into the structural and personnel developments at the Southern Federal University related to the provision of IP and Fundraising services for the university members involved into the process of the university technology transfer. In addition to that, Mr. Scherer accented the nowadays importance of the IP issues addressed in the project and outlined the recent HEI research and entrepreneurial trends and needs in Europe, Russia and worldwide.
After the opening session, the consortium members from Germany, Spain, Poland, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine shared their broad experiences gained within the project and presented the main achievements which became possible thanks to the cooperation within MERCURY. The results described in the final reports referred to the formation of an active international network of experts, the improvement of the university staff awareness related to the process of technology transfer and the establishment of fully operative IP and Fundraising offices as regular departments of the participating universities from the EU partner countries. The first conference day was completed by the presentation of the MERCURY book. The official distribution of the book is planned during the final project dissemination event in Kiev, on 12 January 2012.
The closing part of the Conference was dedicated to the final internal discussions among the consortium members. The project participants had the possibility to make comments on the quality of the project organisation and management as well as to present their institutional plans related to the sustainability of the MERCURY results.
>> Download Final Conference poster in English
>> Download Final Conference poster in Russian
>> Download programme flyer in English
>> Download programme flyer in Russian
>> Download conference anthology
>> View list of presentations
>> View pictures of the event