For researchers in Leiden, there is a long tradition of partnering with local Leiden or Dutch companies. These are celebrated across a broad spectrum of relationships, from informal connections, shared studentships and bilateral R&D collaborations to extensive consortia arrangements with complex public/private funding.

Luris would like to continue to provide support to expand these relationships and is looking forward to exploring how such connections can be created or strengthened. One such initiative is the TechTalk programme.

Together with the Leiden Bio Science Park Foundation (LSBP) Luris hosted a number of TechTalks - aimed at bringing the research community together, whether based in business or in academia. The separate event themes - 'Biomaterials',  'Blood' and 'Genomics' -  brought together people from more than 20 companies with researchers from across Leiden University and Leiden University Medical Center. Interesting new alliances have been the result, showing once again that meeting in person is a stimulating way to trigger new ideas.

In 2016 Luris and LBSP plan to have more of such meetings and they invite researchers to propose themes of interest. They kicked-off in January with the TechTalk Genomics and are looking at an event covering 'Open Innovation'. Luris and LBSP have a special interest in connecting researchers across different disciplines, so our colleagues from the Faculty of Humanities with expertise in different cultures will offer a TechTalk for the local community about doing business with entirely different geographical and cultural regimes.

Researchers are invited to contact Laura Macdonald or Thomas Dijkmans with an interest either in any of the proposed topics or with ideas for additional topics or themes around which we can arrange TechTalks in 2016.