ABOUT BUSINESS & INNOVATION NETWORK (BIN@™)
10 years connecting and creating networks for innovation and scientific technological development

The Business & Innovation Network (BIN@™) is an annual event that brings together academics and industry representatives to share best practices and innovation opportunities since 2010. The meeting is an itinerant event sponsored by the universities of Porto, Sheffield and São Paulo (USP). The BIN@™ network has over 3000 delegates worldwide and has held international meetings in Portugal, UK, Brazil, Romania and Poland.

For more information on previous editions of BIN, access: https://paginas.fe.up.pt/~businessinnovation/site/past-events/


For three days, academics and industry representatives come together to discuss practices and opportunities in innovation, with the goal of promoting new collaborative partnerships between different areas, institutions and countries. Topics related to global challenges are discussed through lectures, workshops on product design and development in addition to the Technology Showroom & Business Showcase exhibition for technology-based companies.

In its thematic editions the event has already addressed issues such as:

  • Research and innovation responsibilities, a collective, sustainable, inclusive and comprehensive approach to the system.
  • From basic to applied research, how the university should participate and optimize the process;.
  • Digitalization.
  • Open innovation towards circular economy.

Between 2010 and 2018 BIN@™ generated good indicators of public policies through university-company interaction and university-society interaction. The BIN@™ event has ocourred at more than 4 global cities, promoting the interaction of different public, academic and business managers with more than 100 speakers from different countries, among them Portugal, England, Canada, Chile, Sweden and Slovenia. Over 100 companies and 80 business meetings were impacted in biotech, healthtech, agrotech and associated areas. With a balance of over 800 participants, with representatives from industry, academia, the public sector and the investor community, BIN@™ promoted contacts, sharing ideas and building new collaborative partnerships, improving local, regional and national scientific and technological competitiveness.

What to expect at BIN@™ events

The editions of the BIN follow a strategic plan with six actions to potentiate the exchange of experiences, strategic partnerships for leading research and interinstitutional interactions. The activities of the events are marked by these six actions:

1.  Open Sessions: These sessions offer a space for debate, exchange of ideas or source of information on global challenges that can guide strategic and technological plans. A list of topics will be made available later.

These sessions are composed of at least one speaker and are open to everyone interested in the topic. The audience is strongly encouraged to participate with questions and comments which will enhance the debate.

2. Action Tank Sessions: These sessions aim to promote  and bring about a cultural change by working across disciplines, sharing knowledge and experience, and creating new interdisciplinary teams which focus on proposed topics in different areas.

3. Focus Sessions: These sessions are mostly B2B, and they Promote direct interaction between demands and offers, and interest in previously identified partnerships.

4. Technology Showroom & Business Showcase: The delegates will have the opportunity to present and/or just visit a wide group of technology showcases and some technology demonstrations / simulations. Any delegate can propose technologies to be presented, free of charge. The Business Showcase includes institutional showcases. The delegates have the opportunity (optional) to be present with a institutional showcase (free of charge) which offers the perfect spot for the companies to promote their expertise, products and projects, but also to interact and/or do business with other partners as well as with academic and scientific communities.

5. Social Program and Networking: This creates a favorable environment for international guests and delegates to interact and connect, identifying opportunities, similarities and challenges in common. A Welcome for international delegates and guests, informal lunches, networking dinner, off-site visits, a Farewell Party and several other networking activities will be offered to the active participants free of charge. These activities aim at strengthening relations and deepening cooperation between the participants.

6. Complementary Events: Workshops, technical visits etc.

BIN@™ BRAZIL 2019 edition
Circularity and Sustainability

The world of science, technology and innovation has undergone constant changes. The formation of future talents with a holistic and multidisciplinary vision to transform the knowledge generated in universities and companies to benefit the population has become a basic global need.
To meet these and other demands, BIN@™’s 2019 edition will address circularity and sustainability as its central theme, focusing on health, biotechnology, agriculture and related areas. The idea is to present, discuss and propose integrated solutions to global challenges based on this central theme. Topics such as business models focusing on reversible cycles and systemic conditions, as well as the building blocks for sectors and cross-cutting themes for industry, agriculture and public health will also be addressed.
Natural resources have always been treated as if they were never finished, thus, the linear model does not guarantee sustainability in the long term and therefore causes a number of negative externalities. For this reason, the circularity of resources has become so important (ABRAMOVAY, 2014, 2017, BOCKEN et al., 2016).
Soil is one of those natural resources that holds almost 1/4 (one-quarter) of the planet’s biodiversity. Much more than agriculture, soil is the coordinator of the energy flow of ecosystems, influencing the natural biogeochemical cycles of carbon, phosphorus and water (QUINTON et al., 2010). According to UN-FAO estimates, about 24 billion tons of soil per year are lost annually, which generates a cost of approximately US $ 70 (seventy dollars) a year for every inhabitant of the planet.
Identifying and quantifying the boundaries of the planet in different thematic areas is the basis for planning more assertive and sustainable actions (ROCKSTRÖM et al., 2009, STEFFEN et al, 2015). It is in this context to find solutions to global problems that the United Nations (UN) created 2030 agenda for sustainable development. There are seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets on a universal agenda.

The circularity and sustainability, converge to the same global concerns presented by ROCKSTRÖM et al. (2009), STEFFEN et al (2015), and the 17 SDGs, in order to plan a legacy of the millennium, with integrated and indivisible solutions that balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, social and environmental.
Circularity is a relevant contemporary innovation, for benefiting the economy as a whole and promising a promising direction for growth and economic development.

The circularity and sustainability can be intensified by four actions:

  1. Design of circular products and production always thinking about the recovery, recycling, reuse and use of the products.
  2. Planning that preserves value (collecting and returning products to their source, such as reverse logistics).
  3. New business models (products that are services, product transformation and product recovery, sustainable consultancies).
  4. Education, aiming at individual awareness for a sustainable vision globally.

This will be the context of the BIN@™ 2019 edition. Furthermore, BIN@™ Brazil 2019 aims to promote the approximation and synergy between University-Business-Public Sector, integrating dimensions of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental), with the aim of generating scientific competitiveness and technological development in the health, biotechnology, agricultural and related areas.