The CII aims to develop a collaborative platform focused on promoting and advancing research, development, and innovation activities linked to the productive sector.
To bridge the gap between industry challenges and academia, the center offers a funding mechanism that enables engineering students from its member schools to complete their final engineering projects on real-world objectives proposed by companies.
In this way, it aims to strengthen national capacities in entrepreneurship and innovation by funding innovation projects focused on solving a problem within a company, an industry, or a priority sector of the country.
The CII comprises the engineering faculties of the University of the Republic, the Catholic University of Uruguay, the University of Montevideo, and Universidad ORT Uruguay.
The projects are:
- “Improvements in the upstream processing of clostridial vaccines” by Pía Fernández and Belén Álamo, Biotechnology Engineering students, for the company Virbac Uy. The advisors are Dr. Lorena Betancor, a research professor of Biotechnology, and Rodrigo Achigar, a professor of Microbiology in the Faculty of Engineering.
- “Development and validation of a diagnostic kit for Trichomonas foetus and Campylobacter fetus” by Doménica Tarallo and Pilar Irigoyen, Biotechnology Engineering students, for the Zurgen Laboratory. The advisor is Mr. Achigar.
- “Development of new formulations of agricultural bioinoculants using encapsulation technologies” by Jennifer Baioni and Valentina Piña, Biotechnology Engineering students, for the company Calister. The advisors are Dr. Betancor and Mr. Achigar.