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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DIATOMIC (Digital Innovation Hubs boosting European Microelectronics Industry)

Teaser

Summary

\"Our times are witnessing the far-reaching changes of the fourth industrial revolution, driven by digital technologies. To avoid losing â‚¬600 B annually, due to slow digital transformation, the EU has to seize the benefits of the Single Digital Market and create a smart economy based on digital innovation. Currently, digitization is already contributing added-value of â‚¬110bn per year to the EU economy, even though it is lagging behind expectations. The digital revolution entails that all sectors in all countries benefit from digital innovation by enabling higher value products with \"\"digital inside\"\", increased efficiency through digitization of processes and/or reshaped business models.

SMEs and mid-caps from all sectors face several challenges. They have limited knowledge of what smart electronics and smart systems can do. They also lack easy access to diverse competencies, primarily technological and scientific, but also competencies regarding business development and market access. While these competencies often exist locally or abroad, they find it difficult and costly to search, find and connect with the relevant players and the resources/competencies they possess. Even when digital innovation is undertaken, companies must face the valley of death to reach TRLs of 7 or higher. One reason for this is the inability to reach critical market mass.

This challenge could be addressed by pursuing user-driven application development followed by targeting a sufficiently large group of customers. DIATOMIC establishes a sustainable ecosystem to facilitate AME/SSI-based innovation in the health, agrifood and manufacturing sectors, all of which are under-digitized and of prime importance for society and the economy. DIATOMIC ecosystem draws from the advanced technological excellence of the DIATOMIC consortium to execute three sector-specific cross-border Application Experiments to help technology adopters, end-users and smart solution developers realise tangible benefits of digitization. At the heart of the ecosystem, three interconnected sector-specific Digital Innovation Hubs (DIH) pulsate to accelerate digitization in-beat with sector-specific needs, and to enable delivery of AME/SSI based applications to a critical mass of customers. DIHs first assist non-tech companies to couple with counterparts across the EU with complementary technological competencies. Then, acting as a one-stop-shop, they offer the teams (i) strong technological support to accelerate design, development, prototyping and manufacturing and (ii) business support to develop solutions with a robust product/market fit.

To realise its vision, DIATOMIC has defined a set of specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound objectives:
Obj #1: To execute three cross-border PUSH application experiments exploiting DIATOMIC partners` technological competencies and use them to ignite digital innovation thinking in non-tech SMEs, to push AME/SSI technologies
Obj #2: To establish three DIHs to spread AME/SSI technologies to an equal number of economic sectors: the critical health sector, the vital agrifood domain, and leading EU industry 4.0 manufacturing SMEs. DIATOMIC DIHs connect any actor of the value chain of the targeted sector with large numbers of Competence Centers (CCs) from different EU countries.
Obj #3: To attract the most talented and knowledgeable innovation consortia to the open calls to execute +15 experiments of high-quality with highly-innovative user-driven applications based on AME/SSI technologies.
Obj #4: To ensure post-project sustainability and growth of the DIATOMIC ecosystem.\"

Work performed

\"DIATOMIC has been present 204 times on online portals and in newsletters in 17 European languages and our online stopshop includes more than 433 CCs & SMEs/MidCaps. DIATOMIC has initiated and is finalising 3 PUSH Experiments (1 in agrifood, 1 in health and 1 in manufacturing). In the frame of the 2 Open calls we have had a massive interest. For Open Call #1, 198 Proposals were Started and 85 were finally submitted, of them 8 are funded and for Open Call #2, 369 Proposals were Started and 175 were finally submitted, of them 9 will be funded.

In terms of Number of countries/sectors addressed by DIATOMIC in-house application experiments the goal was to serve 4 countries and 3 sectors. The project has achieved 5 countries in 3 sectors (Serbia (Agri), Greece (Agri), Germany (Manufacture), Spain (Agri, eHealth, Manufacture) and Portugal (eHealth)).

The goal for the Number of actors attracted/aware of DIATOMIC application experiments was more than 2000. DIATOMIC has achieved more and in fact more than 400 followed DIATOMIC events.

In respect to Number of CCs in the three DIATOMIC DIHs in the end of the project the goal was to have more than 75. We have 433 members (Agrifood 137, Health 159 and Manufacturing 137) and we have designed the system with a capacity to have at least 1000 entries (the goal was to have 500). For the number of application experiments executed in DIATOMIC we have 17 (8 from Open Call #1 and 9 from Open Call #2) with goal to have 15. In terms of number of SMEs and mid-caps being funded to develop AME/SSI based applications we have 30 excluding CCs. In fact we have 29 SMEs 16 CCs and 1 SME-CC (aim was to have in total 30).\"

Final results

DIATOMIC wields Europeâ€™s innovation capacity to whet a competitive edge in three important economic sectors. To do so, it is essential that DIATOMIC catalyzes digital innovation and survives and thrives post-project, generating a continuous and profound impact.
The consortium seizes upon in-house business excellence to operate akin to an early stage start-up: seed-like funding provided by the project will be used to solidify the value propositions for customer groups and to build a sustainable platform based business model. The result will be financial sustainability â€“ paying customers and a monetization strategy.

The consortiumâ€™s founding CCs provide the base for network growth of the DIHs. The accession of new CCs will be actively pursued during and post-project on the basis of a defined plan, identifying strategic potential partners and action steps to reach them. As CCs are also a customer group of the DIATOMIC platform, clear perceivable value must be established and the accession process clarified and simplified during the project.

DIATOMIC must demonstrate economic benefits to using its network for innovation, i.e. strengthen competitiveness and growth of companies, to both tech and non-tech companies. The DIATOMIC DIH is by design a sturdy and flexible network that will be scaled and replicated. It entails low-maintenance, empowerment of self-initiative and incentives for actors to deliver quality of service. The project will provide training grounds for this platform to mature and accomplish the catalytic potential of DIHs recognized by policy makers.
DIATOMIC is envisioned as a Europe-wide open innovation environment to promote and facilitate AME/SSI -based innovation as a mainstream investment activity for businesses in non-tech industries. It will achieve this through a customer- focused approach developed during the project to directly appeal to businesses: (i) deliver clearly perceptible economic benefits and (ii) provide simplicity in the whole interaction.