MICRONORA, the international microtechnology and high-precision trade fair, has been held in Besançon (in Franche-Comté) every two years for the past 30 years, and has accompanied the unique growth of the sector in the region. The last fair brought together close to 1,000 exhibitors — 37% of whom were non-French — and welcomed 15,000 professional visitors. The next fair will take place from 23 to 26 September 2008.

Franche-Comté (in the east of France) may not hit the headlines of the international press as often as its expertise and achievements would warrant, but success stories out of the region are manifold. On 3 April 2007, when a French high-speed train (Train à Grande Vitesse or TGV) smashed the world record for a train on rails, an immense sense of pride filled the corridors of Alstom Transport’s headquarters. The company, which is based in Franche-Comté, masterminded, designed and built the engines that made this outstanding performance possible.

PARKEON, for its part, is a world leader in on-street parking. The company manages over three million parking spaces in the world, and 140,000 of its machines equip the streets of over 3,000 cities across 40 countries. In the medical field, SOPHYSA, a worldwide leader in neurological implants, will soon supply its 100,000th Sophy valve for the treatment of brain diseases.

MICRONORA and TEMIS underpin Franche-Comté’s manufacturing and technological excellence: the former is Europe’s largest microtechnology trade fair, while the latter is a unique high-technology centre.

TEMIS is the only French high-technology centre entirely dedicated to microtechnology.  Located on 130 hectares of land, TEMIS is home to 35 public- and private-sector laboratories, technical transfer centres, the FEMTO-ST research institute, the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Mécanique et des Microtechniques (ENSMM), University of Franche-Comté research and teaching centres and, of course, a cluster of high-tech companies.

The demand is for ever smaller, more accurate and more intelligent components. Wherever you look — inside pay & display machines, motorway displays, luxury articles, watches, imagery equipment, surgical instruments, mobile phones, and even satellites, among others — there is invariably a tiny sliver of Franche-Comté’s microtechnology inside. Microtechnological applications, although they are, by definition, not highly visible, are central to the largest global industries.

The region’s high-tech companies, which originally grew out of the watchmaking industry and its long tradition in Franche-Comté, excel in high precision and miniaturisation. The Franche-Comté microtechnology industry’s market share of international trade is estimated to stand at more than 1%, which it plans to double by 2012.

Franche-Comté is a major and indispensable stakeholder when it comes to all things infinitely small, with 11,000 people employed in the microtechnology cluster by 250 companies that achieve a collective turnover of €1.36 billion.

The innovation capacity of Franche-Comté, which is France’s largest industrial region, has achieved recognition in the microtechnology and high-precision sectors. Franche-Comté’s capital city, Besançon, has been at the cutting edge in this field since 2005, when the French government awarded microtechnology and competitiveness-cluster certification to the region.

The region hosts one of the densest concentrations of industrial know-how, research centres and microtechnology training organisations in the world. The new competitiveness cluster (pôle de compétitivité) is playing a key role in achieving the region’s ambitions. Its international reach now encompasses mature markets among the most developed, such as those of Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.

About Franche-Comté

Franche-Comté is the largest industrial region in France (with 105,600 employees in manufacturing and related industries) and has a major university (with 30,000 students and 1,200 researchers).

The region is the French leader in toy-making, in watchmaking, in the eyewear industry, and in turning & fancy woodwork; it is also the second largest region in the stamping-drawing industry in France; and, finally, Franche-Comté is the third largest region in France for surface-treatment facilities and operations, while it has the third largest concentration of automotive-industry facilities in the country.

PSA-PEUGEOT CITROEN Group is one of the biggest players in Franche-Comté, and it has located one of its largest industrial plants in France in the region. This is no coincidence, since PEUGEOT was originally set up in Franche-Comté. The region’s car industry boasts 64 companies that are either manufacturers or OEMs, with 25,900 employees.

About MICRONORA

MICRONORA is the international microtechnology and high-precision trade fair that takes place in Besançon every two years; it has been going on for 30 years. The next fair will take place from 23 to 26 September 2008.

For further information, go to: www.micronora.com and www.polemicrotechniques.fr