"Seen the societal and political demand for reduction of insecticide use in agriculture, the growth of biological control activities (crop protection methods relying on natural enemies) should be faster. In particular, the private sector of Biological Control Agent (BCA) production could access larger parts of the phytosanitary market. This slow private sector expansion can be explained by its limited R&D capacities and by the insufficient use of synergies with public research on the one side, and extension services or farm-advisors on the other.Based on the needs expressed by stake-holders, COLBICS proposes to stimulate and accompany the growth of 3 firms, via the creation of mixed private/public R&D teams, boosting the R&D capacities of the firms. The team work will allow technological innovation applied to BCA production and optimisation. Innovation will concern the research of new natural enemies, diagnostic tools and production methods reducing production costs and enhancing BCA performances, methods and tools supporting marketing strategies.COLBICS involves 6 participants (from Belgium, France, Spain and Chile) that will exchange staff to create 3 mixed R&D teams. Intense intersectoral transfer of knowledge is guaranteed by the execution of fully collaborative R&D work using the firms’ BCAs, and by specific staff training. Transferred knowledge is about macro-organism identification, engineering in live organism massive production (based on simple genetic and phenotypic analyses), evaluation of BCA efficiency and integration of these BCAs in agrosystems. Particular efforts are planned on the dissemination of generic innovation, together with abundant outreach activities promoting biological control. In addition to its generic innovation impact, COLBICS will impact the 3 firms involved: objectives of turnover increase over a 5 years period have been defined and range from 25% to 400%, depending on the size and socio-economic environment of the firm."