Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - Smart4Europe (Catalysing Digitisation throughout Europe)

Teaser

Innovation in products and services is to an increasing extent based on digitisation that enables enhanced or new functionalities. A key question is “How to optimise the transformation of this potential?” Especially SMEs need an easy access to digitisation technologies...

Summary

Innovation in products and services is to an increasing extent based on digitisation that enables enhanced or new functionalities. A key question is “How to optimise the transformation of this potential?” Especially SMEs need an easy access to digitisation technologies. This was the starting point of the SAE Initiative; the first CSA aligned to this initiative was Smart4Europe (01/09/2017 to 31/08/2019).

The ultimate goals of Smart4Europe were to provide support in:

• reinforcing the collaboration between the projects
• increasing their outreach and impact
• providing wide coverage of stakeholders in technological, application, innovation, and geographic terms.

In order to achieve this, we created a web-based Innovation Portal to provide a service centre, facilitated brokerage, coordinated communication and dissemination activities, helped in sharing best practices and experiences, created a Technology Radar to identify technologies SAE can benefit from and established links to regional/national initiatives to leverage investments and stimulate growth.

Under the SAE umbrella a growing number of projects interacts, focusing on different technology domains and positions in the innovation cycle – Smart4Europe included all of them, brought together the community, helping it to grow and catalysing digitisation throughout Europe.

Work performed

Main results of the project:

• The collaboration between all actions supported under the SAE initiative was reinforced, especially by initiating and maintaining regular meetings and exchange (“share and learn”) between the coordinating partners, institutions and Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs).

• A model was elaborated that can be used by any DIH or project consortium to benchmark their activities, including a blueprint for a sustainability plan and related decision making tools.

• A Technology Radar identified almost 150 technologies of importance to the SAE community to be considered by enterprises, DIHs and authorities in the further digitisation process. A parallel Technology and Research Needs Radar reaches out to the upcoming “Horizon Europe” and “Digital Europe” funding framework programmes, deriving a set of recommendations for the Commission and the SAE community.

Overview on dissemination and exploitation activities:

• Creation of a common web-based marketplace and info-centre for all SAE-actions (1.500 visits per month), especially to:
- promote their open calls, workshops, events etc.
- disseminate their results (success stories, testimonials, videos etc.)
- inform about their progress and further planning in social media and a quarterly newsletter
- attract newcomers via a “help desk” offering e.g. FAQs, download section and “contact us” / “become part of the community”

• Featured the SAE initiative and all aligned actions in common presentations on more than 20 events, DIH meetings, scientific conferences and trade fairs (e.g. EFECS 2017, EFECS 2018, Hannover Messe 2018, ICT 2018, LOPEC 2018, LOPEC2019, DATE 2019). Organised several own sessions and events (e.g. DIH day Stuttgart 2019).

• Targeted outreach activities addressing national and regional initiatives, funding bodies, investors and especially DIHs in specific events, webinars and mutual meetings. This covered also several EU13 and SME oriented activities.

• Network of almost 10,000 persons, about 300 direct SME supports, about 180 contacts discussing concrete digitisation related topics in enterprises, about 120 contacts with EEN, NCP and representatives of other digitisation initiatives.

• Printed SAE brochure (2018) summarising the aims and achievements of the initiative and covering 20 success stories highlighting problem definition, solution and impact.
 

Socio-economic impact:

• The ongoing digital transformation marks an enormous upheaval and affects all areas of nowadays life. The SAE initiative was initiated by the European Commission to support SMEs and Mid-caps improving their products and services by using latest digital technologies.

• Smart4Europe was the first Coordination and Support Action to serve the SAE initiative. The socio-economic impact of the project is also indirect through the impact of the supported Innovation Actions, the SAE initiative as a whole and finally the digitisation process in economy and society itself.


Conclusions:

• The SAE initiative and its aligned CSA provide a platform to:
- share experience and best practice,
- identify challenges that need to be addressed at EU level,
- create a critical mass, reduce fragmentation and speak with one voice,
- trigger collaboration and boost co-investments,
- explore common approaches to regulation, skills and jobs.

• The SAE initiative and its aligned CSA support a close collaboration of DIHs to:
- collaborate based on complementary competence and infrastructure
- transfer knowledge between regions
- support SMEs with expertise even if not locally available
- tap SMEs into not jet addressed value chains or markets
- initialise common projects (e.g. shared infrastructure).

Based on experiences gained, an overall conclusion is that the “Cascade Funding” scheme should be continued and if possible broadened. National and regional authorities should find ways to utilise similar mechanisms for their o

Final results

Smart4Europe will contribute to the main aims of the Work Programme ”H2020-LEIT-ICT”, and particularly to the following expected impacts of the Objective ”ICT-04-2017b: Coordination and Support Action for the Smart Anything Everywhere Initiative”:

Impact 1: The primary and key impact will be the ‘creation of a self-sustainable ecosystem of innovation hubs including ICT suppliers and users supported by services available through a one-stop shop, covering a large number of regions and their smart specialisation’.

Impact 2: Smart4Europe will additionally contribute to ‘innovation in products, processes and business models leading to quantifiable increases in market shares and/or productivity of European companies and/or industrial capacities in Europe, notably for SMEs and mid-caps operating in non-tech sectors’.

Impact 3: Smart4Europe will also support ‘business growth and increase competitiveness of digital technology suppliers, in particular SMEs, able to supply components and systems that may be integrated in various products’.

Smart4Europe has identified several key outcomes that directly address the Call Impacts. Additionally, the work will produce results that will have strategic catalyzing effects by:

1. Bringing together previously separated stakeholders and communities including SSI, IoT, ICT, OLAE as well as regional, national and EU initiatives in order to overcome fragmentation

2. Identifying gaps, strategic directions and target markets with respect to relevant stakeholders, collaborations and partnerships to build a sustainable ecosystem as well as the current and future SAE offer.

3. Contributing to constituency building and thus promoting longer-term efforts and ecosystem building.

4. Gathering and disseminating technology blocks, tools, platforms, training and best practices in the SAE market place.

5. Steering initiatives and efforts towards the identified strategic directions.

Website & more info

More info: https://smart4europe.eu/.