Ambassador of the Month: Donata Folesani

Each month our team introduces a member of the European IP Helpdesk Ambassadors who support to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) all across Europe to deal with intellectual property (IP) inquiries in their local language.

The ambassador of this month is Donata Folesani from ART-ER Attractiveness Research Territory Emilia-Romagna, Italy, who has been part of the team since 2013. Donata has 30 years of professional experience in innovation and technology transfer, including more than 15 years in IP diagnosis and assistance in science-industry collaboration. She currently coordinates activities and programmes addressed to regional innovation ecosystem for IP management, access to finance and investor readiness.

Donata has indicated in her interview that the major challenges SMEs face with regard to IP, are often SMEs and start-ups do not know how to properly use and manage their IP for the benefit of their business. In other words, they do not consider and integrate IP in their business strategy. Therefore, it is crucial to make an objective assessment of what their intangible assets are and support them to have an efficient IP strategy.