“CAT.AL - Lombardy High Tech Agrofood Cluster” aims at supporting enterprises, universities and research bodies in Lombardy in their process of developing their collaborative network while recognizing their common targets and needs of innovation in the agro-food sector. The vision is to build a shared community of knowledge and expertise aimed at successfully embarking on new challenges for the international economy. CAT.AL endeavours to do this while always keeping in sight sustainable growth.
CAT.AL supports the creation of the web-based network established amongst an assorted range of agro-food enterprises in Lombardy. Members are encouraged to raise their awareness of governmental strategies and research policies for the development of the agro-food sector. This can also help companies in starting partnerships that can eventually lead to more profitable businesses.
CAT.AL has been officially recognized by the local government of Lombardy as the appointed cluster and stakeholder to engage research and pinpoint innovation targets in the agro-food sector. Thus, members of CAT.AL are adequately represented during the elaboration of new guidelines aimed at the innovation in the agro-food sector and in the drafting of competition announcements.
While supporting and valuing services to local enterprises in the context of technological innovation, CAT.AL aims to raise the competitive level of its members, making them more economically attractive both at local and international levels.
Tha managing body of CAT.AL is Parco Tecnologico Padano (PTP), the leading Italian Science and Technology Park operating in the Agrifood, Bioeconomy and Life Sciences sectors.
In the Agrifood sector, PTP research is focused on quali-quantitative improvement of animal and plant productions, sustainability and agri-food production enhancement. PTP can provide innovative solutions to solve complicated issues. Results obtained can be spent in the livestock and agri-food sectors, going from biodiversity characterization and genetic improvement to, especially for the food sector, the development of new diagnostics equipment and food product traceability. The goal concerns food safety, reduced environmental impact and human and animal health safeguard.
In the macroarea of Bioeconomy, PTP focuses its research on biorefineries, renewable resources and waste minimization. The main objectives are: new sustainable productive systems from an environmental, social and economic point of view; multi-purpose culture development, second and third generation biomasses, lignocellulosic biomass appreciation by means of biocatalysis process optimization, biostimulants identification and production, microalgae characterization and selection to produce high-value molecules and bioremediation.
The last sector addressed is health, in particular biomedical and translational medicine, in collaboration with several research institutions and companies. A remarkable expertise has been developed in the genomic analyses, next generation sequencing, bioinformatics and biostatistics. The know-how is capitalized on pre-clinical and personalized medicine activities, biomarker characterization and for nutraceuticals. The expertise developed with omics technologies makes PTP the ideal partner for the pharmaceutical sector, where genomics, biological data analysis and statistics are pivotal for new molecule studies and development
Services and applied research are provided through state-of-the-art technology platforms and according to the demands and needs of businesses as well as trying to anticipate the trends of market innovation. PTP offers business services on the whole national territory, while maintaining a special focus on developing value chains based on social-economic-environmental interregional SME needs.
By integrating cutting edge research with innovation, through interdisciplinary and transversal approach, CAT.AL and PTP contribute to bioeconomy development, with a focus on agriculture, food and health. Research and Development are supported for both academia and industry through innovative technology platforms for genomics, statistics and bioinformatics. In addition, through Alimenta Incubator and Accelerator, CAT.AL and PTP provide high-level services to support business development from both R&D activities and new ideas.
Since their creation, CAT.AL and PTP are rapidly growing into a reference point inside Lombardy region for Agrofood and agro-biotech sectors, and act globally as well through metacluster networks aimed at boosting the regional cluster on the world stage.
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