Coordination of EU networks for Industry:

Moving towards value chain-based networks in an Open Innovation

setting
24th March 2021 - 10.00-12.00 CET Zoom Webinar

Organised on behalf of:

European Commission DG GROW
Executive Agency for Small and Medium sized Enterprises (EASME)
By ATI and PITCCH projects

The event “Coordination of EU networks for Industry: Moving towards value chain-based
networks in an Open Innovation setting” was the fourth in a series of 10 events organised
within the Advanced Technologies for Industry (ATI) project (https://ati.ec.europa.eu/)
commissioned by EASME and DG GROW. The event was organised within the EU Industry
Week 2021 (local event).
The aim of the Make it Work events is to properly inform public and private intermediaries
from different regions on latest project activities and findings while triggering participants to
brainstorm on new ideas and viewpoints to translate their regional smart specialisation
priorities into potential collaborative high-quality projects and smart investments. In this
context, the Advanced Technologies for Industry (ATI) project provides a systematic
monitoring of technological trends and data on advanced technologies to properly support
the implementation of policies and initiatives and finally promote a competitive European
industry.
This Make it work event presented ATI, PITCCH, I4MS and DIHNET projects and stimulated an
open discussion among them to identify synergies and long-term collaboration for an efficient
support to European stakeholders in their innovation journeys.

Welcome and introduction

The policy context - Evangelos Meles, European Commission, DG GROW D2 - Industrial

Forum, Alliances, Clusters

The Commission briefly presented

the policy context of the ATI and
PITCCH projects, which is the
Industrial Strategy presented in
March 2020 (reminding that it will
present an updated industrial
strategy in 2021). Industry is
undergoing an important
transformation, as it faces the
challenges of the twin digital and
green transition, including adopting
more circular approaches.
The Covid-19 pandemic made these challenges more pressing and accelerated the above
mentioned transitions.
The fundamental factors in making Europe’s twin industrial transition happen were presented
(as shown in the figure below).

Among these factors, embedding a spirit

of industrial innovation features
prominently. The global race on the twin
transitions will increasingly be based on
frontier science and mastering advanced
technologies, which goes hand in hand
with this industrial innovation.
Lastly, and more importantly for our work
in the ATI and PITCCH projects,

Within the context of supporting this

spirit of industrial innovation, the
Commission briefly introduced the ATI
project and the Pan-European Open
Innovation Network for Corporate
Challenges in Advanced Technologies (PITCCH).
The ATI project analyses and systematically monitors the state of uptake of advanced
technologies by EU industry.
In particular, one of the objectives of the ATI project is to map ATI Technology Centres1 to
help SMEs to cross the Valley of Death and go from lab to market to develop and produce
new ATI-based products.
The PITCCH project aims to increase the competitiveness of European industries by
promoting open Innovation through a pan-European network where technology centres and
innovation agents act as intermediaries to facilitate the establishment of structured
collaborations between Big Corporations (BCs) and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises
(SMEs).

DIHs network and EDIHs in DIGITAL: I4MS and DIHNET - Anna Puig-Centelles (Ph.D.), DG CNECT
A4 - Digital Transformation of Industrial Ecosystems

Anna Puig-Centelles presented briefly Horizon Europe and Digital Europe programmes.
Horizon Europe: Support to SMEs and mid-caps to experiment with highly innovative digital
technologies in a cross-border setting. European Digital Innovation Hubs and others may
apply for these grants, and cascade a large part of the funding to SMEs.

1
ATI Technology Centres are public or private organisations carrying out applied research and close-to-market innovation (Technology
Readiness Levels TRL 3 to 8, not necessarily the whole range) in Advanced Technologies for Industry
Digital Europe: Support to the facilities and personnel of the European Digital Innovation
Hubs, to build capacity in Europe to diffuse digital innovations across SMEs and
administrations.

Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs) and European Digital Innovation Hubs

Connection among the EDIHs and DIHs:
• EDIHs will be regionally distributed to collaborate with existing other DIHs.
• EDIHs can support the other DIHs with ArtificiaI Intelligence (AI), High Performance
Computing (HPC) or Cybersecurity, representing them in the EU EDIH network or
connecting them with DIHs from other countries.
The Digital Transformation Accelerator (DTA) is a central node to animate the EDIH network:
community building events between EDIHs and DIHs that are not part of the EDIH network to
set up links.

Ms. Puig-Centelles invited participants to register to the DIHNET.EU Community and EDIHs
Catalogue for a more structured collaboration between group of hubs, e.g around sector. See
more useful link in the dedicated session below.
Presenting EU networks for Industry and their positioning along the innovation cycle

Moderated by Alessandra Massaro, Senior Consultant at IDC

ATI Advanced Technologies for Industry– Els Van de Velde, IDEA

The EU’s industrial policy strategy promotes the creation of a competitive European industry.
In order to properly support the implementation of policies and initiatives, a systematic
monitoring of technological trends and reliable, up-to-date data on advanced technologies is
needed. To this end, the Advanced Technologies for Industry (ATI) project has been set up. It
provides policymakers, industry representatives and academia with:
• Statistical data on the production and use of advanced technologies including
enabling conditions such as skills, investment or entrepreneurship;
• Analytical reports such as on technological trends, sectoral insights and products;
• Analyses of policy measures and policy tools related to the uptake of advanced
technologies;
• Analysis of technological trends in competing economies such as in the US, China or
Japan;
• Access to technology centres and innovation hubs across EU countries.

As an example of the ATI Sectoral reports, the one on agri-food industry analyses trends in
the generation and uptake of advanced technologies, related entrepreneurial activities and
skills needs in the agri-food sector with a specific emphasis on Industrial Biotechnology,
Robotics, Big Data and Internet of Things (including e-commerce and app
design). Furthermore, the Product Watch report series map key players of the sectors
analysed, identifying strengths and opportunities.

ATI Technology Centres

ATI Technology Centres are public or private

organisations carrying out applied research and
close-to-market innovation (Technology
Readiness Levels TRL 3 to 8, not necessarily the
whole range) in Advanced Technologies for
Industry. The objective is to map ATI
Technology Centres to help SMEs to cross the
Valley of Death and go from lab to market to
develop and produce new ATI-based products.

Pan-European Open Innovation Network for Corporate Challenges in advanced technologies -

Paula Galvão Business and Strategic Relations Chief Officer International Iberian
Nanotechnology Laboratory

“ICT platforms per se will not work, we need to revise and promote a new open innovation
collaboration”. Paula Galvão stressed the importance to forge collaborations between Big
Corporations and SMEs to increase the competitiveness of European industry. Technology centres and
innovation agents can act as intermediaries to facilitate these collaborations.

The PITCCH Pan-European network is promoted by the following partners:

❖ International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory

❖ TNO - Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research
❖ Rina-Consulting SpA
❖ Steinbeis 2i GmbH
❖ Vitamina

Who can benefit: Target audience

How a company can participate:

Link to register: https://innovation.pitcch.eu/login

The role of technology centres in the PITCCH network is to be key enablers and efficient mediators
between big companies and SMEs. PITCCH aims to have a sustainable business project, proposing a
practical approach to facilitate the process and encourage Open Innovation business models among
companies.

Complementarities between PITCCH and the other projects:

❖ Exploiting the mapping of Technology Centres in advanced technologies from the ATI project
to involve them in the PITCCH network for providing services to the companies;
❖ Leveraging on the mapping of the services and local networks already built by Digital
Innovation Hubs, integrating a European and cross-border ecosystem;
❖ Encouraging the uptake of advanced technologies (key enabling technologies + digital
technologies) and cooperation between SMEs and BCs, along the promotion of digital
technologies uptake in manufacturing processes from I4MS project.

European networks supporting SMEs - Maurits Butter (TNO)

European collaboration leads to easy access to leading edge technologies and skills/expertise at
European level and supports and initiates new business opportunities to broaden and reinforce
innovative markets in other regions. Moreover, European collaboration fosters pan-EU value chains
to increase the competitiveness and decrease dependencies of the EU industry.

4 Building Blocks of the EU DIH network

Mr Butter offered an insightful and clear image of the (E)DIHs and EU-networks (as shown in the image
below).
The key assets of those Innovation Actions networks are:
- information on infrastructures, expertise in Europe
- trustworthy contacts to the key players in Europe and community at large
- expertise in initiating EU-collaborations
- access to financial capital for EU-collaborations
- trustworthy EU brand that attracts stakeholders and ensures high quality.
Although the collaboration between European partners can be hindered by the cost to engage
(inefficiency and time required), difficulties in finding trusted partners who can provide expertise and
asymmetrical information overflow, there are also many „gains” that relevant stakeholders should
take in consideration.

Coordination of EU networks for Industry: Moving towards value chain-based networks in an

Open Innovation setting – Mayte Carracedo, Project Manager I4MS

I4MS (ICT Innovation for Manufacturing SMEs) is the initiative promoted by the European
Commission to foster the digital innovation of manufacturing SMEs in Europe in order to
boost their competitiveness in the digital era.

THE I4MS GOAL

Contribute to the adaptation of European SMEs
to the current digital transformation challenges
• Promoting knowledge exchange.
• Encouraging cross-border cooperation.
• Providing access to funding
opportunities.

Who can benefit: target audience

I4MS CSA contributes to I4MS ecosystem structuration
and visibility.
• Collaborates with Innovation Actions (IAs), Digital
Innovation Hubs (DIHs) and other related
networks to solve the challenges faced by tech
suppliers when trying to accelerate digital take up
by manufacturing SMEs in Europe.

To successfully benefit from ICT, SMEs need support along the entire innovation process:

• Funding
• Training
• Mentorship
• Access to physical and virtual technology platforms.

How can a company participate

DIHs can also participate:

• Working Group on Best Practices and supporting Mechanisms on Digital
Transformation.
• Working Group on Upskilling challenges.
• I4MS Contact Points Network
• Contribute to our catalogue of trainings
• Participate in I4MS online community
What services I4MS projects offer to the ecosystem:

Panel Discussion - Towards a network of Networks: Identifying synergies and long-

term collaborations

Moderator: Michela Mattaloni, Business and Strategic Relations Officer at INL

Panel participants: projects representatives and Andreas Ocklenburg, CEO of CloudSME

The second part of the event aimed to be an open discussion between the initiatives,
previously presented, together with the company CloudSME represented by the CEO Andreas
Ocklenburg who brought in the panel the point of view of a company.

A series of questions were launched through a poll and the moderator commented the results
with the panellists.

How does a company orient itself among the different European initiatives? ´
According to Mr. Ocklenburg, it is important for SMEs to have a basic understanding of the
funding schemes and to have the means to overcome the language barrier. The funding
scheme can be perceived as a “jungle” because SMEs usually receive many different offers
(e.g. Chambers of commerce, support from regional, national level and European level).

What type of guidance would you consider helpful?

According to Mr. Ocklenburg, mapping and facilitating the connection through intermediaries
(e.g. regional contact point) is very important. SMEs can be reluctant when it comes to
national and European funding because the process can be perceived as a long bureaucratic
effort and the time-frames not appropriate. There is a need for companies to have faster
time-frames from submission of proposals to funding. Furthermore, SMEs need trust and
motivation to apply, this could be achieved for example through some mentoring activities to
build trust and personal relationships.

What type of information does an SME consider relevant when looking for business
development opportunities?

The majority of respondents voted for “clear details on funding schemes” and “ready-to-use
guidelines”. Mr. Butter stressed the point that there are two types of SMEs, on one side those
that use the funding to cover an internal gap and get funding; on the other side, those that
understand the opportunity of these networks as source of a wider business development.
Mr. Butter pointed out that it is important to make SMEs understand the opportunities of EU
collaborations, beyond the funding opportunities.
Another element brought up in the discussion, according to Ms. Galvão, was the importance
of bringing newcomers to benefit from funding opportunities and to facilitate SMEs to access
these opportunities: this could be reached through two approaches, a top-down one by the
European Commission and a bottom-up through the cooperation among initiatives (at local
level). Ms. Carracedo added that another point to take into consideration is the need to open
opportunities beyond the early-adopters and engage also organisations not familiar with
European opportunities.
What synergies should projects put in place and how can these be fostered at the benefit of
companies?
Development of a common platform to ensure unique access to the available opportunities
and building upon the strengths of previous activities were the most voted options by the
audience.
From ATI perspective, Ms. Van de Velde also stressed that building upon the strengths of
previous initiatives is necessary to ensure successful synergies among the different initiatives.
Ms. Carracedo added that an entry point where an SME submits a request that is analysed by
an intermediary who will help to identify the right initiative could be a useful result of a
synergy.

How should the output of these synergies be shaped? (On-line or more local level)
All the panellists agreed that the best way to go is not represented by a platform of platforms,
but to build on the strengths of previous and ongoing initiatives and leverage regional or local
contact points.
Some conclusive take-aways from the discussion included:
• Exchanging experiences with experienced SMEs would be beneficial for companies
starting their journey through EU opportunities;
• The role of intermediaries assumes a great importance as guidance for SMEs;
• A better mapping of initiatives could offer a clearer view to interested SMEs;
• The need of helping SMEs understand the opportunities of EU collaborations that can
go beyond the funding opportunities;
• The importance of a bottom – up approach and collaboration between initiatives
would be the best way to move forward.

“We have a long way to go, but we have started and we are on the right track”
(Paula Galvão)

Conclusive remarks - Evangelos Meles, European Commission

This event hosted an insightful and useful discussion among different initiatives supporting
the competitiveness of European industry. The European Commission will keep on guiding all
these initiatives by working on the implementation of policies and programmes in support of
this objective, in close collaboration with those relevant actors. Indeed, funding programmes
like Horizon Europe have been co-created, so we are well set from a coordination point of
view. The networks now must ensure that all the feedback collected during these events and
from collaborative meetings will be taken into consideration in their implementation efforts.
The human factor has been identified as fundamental for connecting the dots between the
different coordination and support activities; the people managing these activities should
actively collaborate.