The Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (English: Flanders Institute for Biotechnology), is a research institute located in Flanders, Belgium. VIB was founded by the Flemish government in 1995, and became a full-fledged institute on 1 January 1996. The main objective of VIB is to strengthen the excellence of Flemish life sciences research and to turn the results into new economic growth. VIB spends almost 80% of its budget on research activities, while almost 12% is spent on technology transfer activities and stimulating the creation of new businesses, in addition VIB spends approximately 2% on socio-economic activities.
The institute is led by Jo Bury and Rudy Dekeyser. Hugo Van Heuverswyn is Chairman of the Board of Directors.
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The strategic goals of the VIB are:
The VIB scientist works on the normal and abnormal or pathological processes occurring in a cell, an organ and an organism (humans, plants, micro organisms). Instead of relocating scientists to a new campus, the VIB researchers work in research departments of four Flemish universities: Ghent University, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, the University of Antwerp and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
VIB has established several core facilities focused on advanced technologies, which make high through-flow technologies available to academic and industrial researchers in Flanders.
VIB was involved in the creation of spin-offs from academic research groups, such as for Ablynx, Peakadilly, DevGen, CropDesign, SoluCel, and ActoGeniX.