Invest in France Agency spain Office

3 Key Markets:
- Packaging
- Printing
- Table decor

Common Theme:
New applications of "soft chemicals" (sustainable development) in substitution for derivatives
of petrochemicals

Proactive approach to innovation:
Where the 3 key markets intersect, the cluster identifies new value-added products and services, allows innovation and guides new ideas through the product realization cycle.

Application examples:
• Use of non-soluble vegetable dyes in package printing
• Innovative industrial process (at high speed) for glass decorating
• Innovative polymer chains coming from plant chemistry integrated into labels/packaging.
(ex: food packaging treatment)

Cluster research themes:
•  Sustainable development
•  Improvement of product functionality
• Improvement of production procedures

Cluster services provided:
•Meetings and exchanges between players (intermediary)
•Technological survey and anticipation of new market outlets
•Definition / qualification of the innovation needs of companies
•Project implementation support (definition, partner research, structure,
    finances)
•Project follow-up and communications

National economic issue (economic weight of 3 key markets in France)
• Labeling / packaging: 115,000 employees, € 18 billion in annual revenues
• Table decor:  20,352 employees, €1.6 billion in annual revenues
• Printing: 51,419 employees, € 7.1 billion in annual revenues

Advantages

Young population, numerous and qualified
•1.9 million people (4 million in the North Pas de Calais region)
•36% of the population is under the age of 25
•100,000 students (150,000 in the North Pas de Calais region – No. 2 Academy in France)
•4 Universities, 1 European university cluster, 13 engineering schools, 8 business schools etc.
•250 laboratories (3,000 instructors-researchers) with strong emerging research in Science and Information Technology and Communications; Life Science and Technology; Materials and Chemistry (Ex: Institut Chevreul)

A Dynamic Economy
• #2 tertiary service center in France (finance, insurance, headquarters)
• Steadily growing number of jobs (+ 9% en 2006) and company creation (+12% en 2005)
• 3 region in France for international business
• #1 region in France for foreign investment
• 5 official innovative clusters (including the MAUD cluster) in the North Pas-de-Calais region.

A metropolitan city in the heart of Europe, close to important markets
• 100 million consumers within a radius of less than 300 km

Members (June 2008)

56 members divided as follows:

The MAUD cluster counts notably among its founding members, the following companies:
•Arc International - global leader in table decor with annual revenues of  1.13 billion euros, employing 18,000 people worldwide
•Roquette, leading French producer and fourth-largest global producer in the Starch Industry, with annual revenues of 2 billion euros and employing 5,400 people worldwide.

Projects (June 2008)

• 7 operational programs totalling a budget of 10 million euros (with the exception of the DESCARTES Program
- MATBAR  -  CERALEF  - DECOUVERRE  -  PALED
- ALEMO  -  INTERSPORRE  -  DECARTE

• 2 programs in the start-up / financing phase
- CERMET  - DRAWSPEED

• 27 programs in progress

Upstream research
•6 theses in process since 2006 in the universities and schools of Nord-Pas de Calais
- Industrial vision: automatic comparison of color textures...
- Interaction of steel/melted glass (upstream processed glass)
- Synthesis of telomeres and their catalytic transformations (upstream value-added for biomass
- Innovative surfactants with functional properties (upstream detergency and biomass
- Structure and stretchability of polymer films resulting from  biomass (upstream packaging)
- Surface coatings of silica glass rollers
- 1 close partnership with the Institute Chevreul (400 associated researchers)

Partnerships and Cooperation

National:
• Glass Valley (global cluster of luxury bottles - Picardy)
• Technical Center for Paper (CTP) – Grenoble
• Packaging Valley (Champagne – Ardennes)
• ESIEC – Reims (Packaging and Conditioning engineering school)

International:
• European program, EUREKA, via EU's Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (PCRD)
• Partner with several European research organizations including:
The Institute of New Materials at Sarrebruck in Germany, Materials Institute, Nutrition and Food (TNO) in the Netherlands, the Ceramics Tehnological Center (BCRC-INISMA) in Mons,  Belgium
• NATISS (Nature for Innovative and sustainable solutions) - Belgium - (Center for research and Agro-industrial development)
•Member of the orientation committee for the PLANT-BIO project (Plant Bio products, Innovation Opportunity), the leading research program on renewable Europe and United States, with the scientific participation of the United States Department of Agriculture in particular

• More information on MAUD cluster