Training and Education Provided by Microbial Culture Collections in Europe (II): Overview on Current Demand and Needs of Customers of the MIRRI Consortium

The currently ongoing boom in the bioeconomy is fueled by Biolgical Resource Centers, which play a vital role in harnessing and preserving the world's biodiversity. MIRRI is an EU-ESFRI project involving a total of 33 partners and collaborating parties, aiming to provide facilitated accesss to microbial resources, associated data and expertise, and promote knowledge transfer and foster innovation. In order to achive these goals, it is crucial to properly define our stakeholder community and identify their current and future needs.

MIRRI conducted a wide-scoped survey targeting current and potential users of microbial resourcec and services. The survey aimed to identify trends in current and future demand and needs for our services, and pinpoint possible gaps in our offer. It also included a specific section on education and training. Replies from a total of 1146 individual users were collected and further examined, procesed and analyzed.

Here we present and analyze some of the results of this survey, focusing on training and education. We identified a much wider untapped market for education and training within our customer base, which is expected to expand in the next five years. The expected spike in demand of training from culture collections is particularly pronounced in replies from the profit sector.

One should not that the additional efforts are clearly required in adjusting our offer, adapting contents and content delivery and focusing on cost-efficency and proper advertising to increase visibility, harness this potential growth, and better serve the needs of our customers.