ADERA/ECOBAG

ADERA- "Association for the development of Teaching and Research within the Universities, Research Laboratories and Companies of Aquitaine" - is private structure that contributes to the development of links between research and industry.

Since its creation in 1967, ADERA has developed an experience in the following areas :

- Financial and administrative management of research contracts between industrialists and state-run laboratories (in 2004, 273 contracts generated a turnover of 6,79 million euros) ;

- The organizacion of "technological units" linked to laboratories and which offer services for the transfer of technology to companies (5,24 millions euros invoiced for this service in 2004);

- Technical and financial coordination of government programmes to support innovation, the placement of trainees in companies (in 2004, we coordinated the movements of 204 students within the Leonardo da Vinci programme), regional engineering assistance, and the follow-througth of community research projects (we managed regional, national and European subsidies worth around 2,8 millions euros within these areas of activity in 2002);

- The organization of industrial or scientific training courses, seminars and international conferences of up to 1000 participants, and the co-organization of events supported by the European Union (e.g eBusiness eWork, EuroIndia Forum, etc.);

- Participation in projects financed within the Framework Programme for Research and Development (10 projects in total between 1998 and 2004).

Since 2002, the Scientific Group ECOBAG (Environment, Ecology and Economy of the Adour-Garonne River Basin District) is a department of ADERA, that means that its administrativeand financial management is ensured by ADERA. ECOBAG will lead the Concert'Eau project. ECOBAG is gathering 7 universities from the cities of Bordeaux, Pau and Toulouse, and 3 national research institutions, namely the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), the National Institute for Agronomy Research (INRA) and the public agricultural and environmental research institute (CEMAGREF).

The main objectives of ECOBAG are to interface research activities with the social, economic, operational and political actors related to "Water and Substainable Development within the Adour-Garonne RBD".

Since 1995, ECOBAG has acquired the skill for :

    - multi-institutional identification of the knowledge and tools requirements for integrated water management;

    - initialisation of interdisciplinary integrated research projects to provide the required knowledge an tools, and funds mobilisation for the             corresponding research works;

    - the transfer of the project results to water skateholders.