The main goal for the years to come is the transformation of EIT Manufacturing into a well-regarded service organisation offering qualified services to the European Manufacturing domain. This transformation will include all parts of the organisation; the pillars, the CLCs and the Manufacturing SASU. An extensive catalogue of possible service offerings has been established and prioritised. The first results have been achieved already. According to our go-to-market strategy, services will be piloted by the CLCs or the Manufacturing SASU and, if successful, rolled out over the whole organisation. The first portfolio of start-ups with financial sustainability agreements has been established, with an estimated valuation of more than €2 million. EIT Manufacturing will focus its investment in the next three years on the “European Manufacturing System”, taking an integrated European approach of all pillars: Innovation, Education, RIS, Business Creation and Communication. The “European Manufacturing System” will play a key role in the Circular Economy. It will link the steps of value creation processes in a multidimensional way, in order to identify the environmentally, economically and socially sustainable favourable alternatives for each step, going from an idea to a finished product, process or service. With Europe’s sensitivity for sustainability, and its ingenious talents in developing innovative technologies, processes and means of collaboration, Europeans are destined to lead the way to further evolved and improved Manufacturing Systems. EIT Manufacturing, in cooperation with its partners and ecosystem, helps drive this leadership by postulating the “European Manufacturing System” as a strategic objective for the European manufacturing industry, with global implications. The Business Plan implementation will fully comply with the EIT Financial Sustainability principles, KIC fund principles, Innovation Principles, EIT RIS Hub Minimum Standards and Good Governance principles.

The overall objective of the project is to boost green and digital transition of European manufacturing SMEs through the uptake of advanced technologies and social innovation. To that end, MANTRA will create and demonstrate an effective and highly scalable European-wide capacity building and demonstration programme to provide SMEs with the required assistance, network of partners and experts, and financial support to elaborate and implement tailored transformation journeys leading to sustainable business models and, more competitive and resilience SMEs. This innovation support ecosystem will be built on the capacities of a strong consortium and of available EU support networks and SME support initiatives.

ZOOOM aims to raise awareness on the importance of IP generation and management in collaborative innovation ecosystems which rely on three key assets, software, hardware and data. Open software, hardware and data are essential for a sustainable, trustworthy and sovereign industrial ecosystem. However, lack of competences in matching business models with appropriate licensing frameworks prevents unlocking the full potential of emerging technologies. ZOOOM departs from the concept that achieving strategic autonomy and technological sovereignty is possible through a sound understanding of what open licensing strategies are the best match for specific business models. This includes knowing when and to what degree it makes sense to stay open, and when going proprietary is the best strategy. The project aims to reach three core target groups actors in innovation ecosystems: knowledge generators, innovation support organizations and key stakeholders. Knowledge generators will benefit from tools for learning and supporting everyday development, increase competences on open licensing strategies for IP management, disseminate the concept and facilitate the application of IP management by identifying and suggesting viable business models enabled by open licensing strategies. Supporting organizations will get tools for internal training, support material to empower their clients, identify formats or services able to increase the reach of the IP management concepts and a database of cases analysed under the lens of open licencing and business development. Key stakeholders will benefit from a white book suggesting an integrated EU approach to open licensing of software, hardware and data as intertwined components of the innovation policy. This will set the basis for further research on the role of open licensing from a joint legal and business perspective, and guide the implementation of IP management and valorization in collaborative development platforms.

XR2Learn will deliver the XR2Learn platform around which it establishes a cross-border innovation community for XR in learning, bringing XR technology providers, application designers, education experts, application developers, end-users and decision makers in direct access to communicate, collaborate and matchmake interests enabling also bottom up innovation creation. XR2Learn will go beyond offering sound technical and business support for the creation of XR applications for education: XR2Learn will provide access to authoring tools for development of applications through its platform, deliver tools for emotion/affect detection and for automated adaptation of the learning experience to the user needs and emotions, deliver guidance relevant to educational design and use case definition, provide opportunities for piloting and user testing mediated by the large networks brought by XR2Learn partners, promote tools that enable and boost the re-use and sharing of the learning materials/XR applications, offer business development support and additionally, support IPR management through NFTs enabling novel business model implementation. XR2Learn will support innovators (ICT-SMEs) all the way from ideation to commercialisation offering them tailored business and technical support as well as direct funding through FSTPs.

The urgency to address the environmental impact of the prevailing linear economic paradigm has intensified, stressing the need for optimizing resource utilization, minimizing waste, and maximizing product value to achieve ecological and economic benefits. This is particularly critical in the automotive industry, where a significant volume of primary materials is employed. Recycling scrap materials in this sector can yield impressive 85% reduction in CO2 emissions. However, designing automotive parts for circularity requires innovative (1) tools and infrastructures to close current information gaps as well as (2) multi-purpose alloys with enhanced compatibility and processibility for scrap materials to increase recyclability of materials. This requires a comprehensive consideration of life cycle scenarios, potential constraints on recycled material, and adherence to changing standards and regulations. Digi4Circular project tackles these challenges by creating a robust digital workflow for circular product development integrated into the Synera low code platform, demonstrated on aluminium casting use case in the automotive sector. Through automated workflows, the project facilitates the generation of circular product designs and manufacturing possibilities, contingent on environmental impact assessments for different end-of-life scenarios. The approach relies on novel methods for material design and property prediction of circular alloys, rapid LCA and LCC analysis, knowledge extraction from norms and expert know-how, integrated by rule- and knowledge-based systems for automated product design generation. The workflow connects all necessary software tools and data generated throughout the value chain in a dedicated information space, whereas life cycle data for individual products is systematically stored in a Digital Product Passport accessible for all developers in the value chain.