SynHERA represents the network of all French-speaking Universities Colleges of Applied Sciences and their associated Research Centers in Belgium. Its main objective is to support and promote collaborative research and business development between its academic researchers and the private, the non-profit or public sector as well as to facilitate the transfer of the developed technologies to the civil society.

Our team is made up of specialized professionals with diverse expertise (scientific advisors, legal advisors, business developers, communication advisors). We support these research projects with practical applications at all stages of their development:

• from the project idea: help with the set-up of the project, finding relevant partners and funding opportunities, proof-reading the proposal before its submission to funding bodies, providing legal advices (drafting of NDAs, collaboration contracts, etc.);

• to the follow-up of the project: detecting transferable research results, implementing strategies for the protection and exploitation of these transferable results (licensing / transfer negotiations between the partners, etc.);
• and the valorization of the project’s results: promoting and disseminating the results, in order to enhance the visibility of the developed processes/services/methods/technologies/devices; submitting patents (and negotiating the licensing/exploitation rights), identifying potential future developments (new funding opportunities, new projects).

In the field of Health Sciences, Universities of Applied Sciences are mainly active in :
–       physiotherapy, ergotherapy and chiropody (podiatry);
–       geriatrics, nursing, midwifery;
–       audiology, speech therapy (logopaedics);
–       psychomobility, psychology;
–       medical imaging, radiotherapy;
–       dietetics and nutrition;
–       biology and biotechnology.

Multiple collaborations also exist with the departments of ICT, for the development of e-health technologies.