New european project for construction sector and AM: METABUILDING H2020 project
One of the biggest challenges within the European Built Environment Sector is to foster innovation, especially at the SME level, which account for more than 80% of the output of the Construction Sector, worldwide.
In general, Construction companies’ investment in R&D is extremely low. Moreover, this albeit extremely important industrial sector (9% of EU GDP with 18 million direct jobs) has one of the lowest levels of digitization, having a negative impact on its productivity. METABUILDING starts from the assumption that the Open Innovation paradigm can help the sector by boosting collaborative, cross-sectoral actions for the benefit of all, within an enlarged, cross-border European Built Environment innovation ecosystem. So, this three-year project will involve five European industrial sectors (Construction, Digital Industrial, Additive Manufacturing, Nature-Based Solutions and Circularity & Recycling industries) searching for synergies.
METABUILDING will contribute to structure this enlarged EU Built Environment Innovation Ecosystem, taking concrete actions to drive the emergence of national “metaclusters” as the new paradigm of networked regional and national clusters, collaborating to achieve critical mass and share knowledge and resources, enabling SMEs to internationalise their activities and reach European markets. These actions will be developed in 6 EU countries (Austria, Italy, France, Hungary, Portugal, Spain), involving around at least 90 European clusters hosting more than 6.000 SMEs as the main target group of the METABUILDING Innovation Action.
The METABUILDING project will implement Cascade Funding mechanisms to bring financial support to SMEs to EU regions.METABUILDING will also feature an Open Innovation Digital Platform available to all stakeholders of the enlarged Built Environment sector in Europe that will host innovation-related information and a digital marketplace, allowing partner matchmaking for international collaboration and support collaborative projects. This digital platform will be closely related to the ECTP (European Construction Technology Platform, partner in this project) and is expected to remain and grow to cover all EU countries and other construction-related industrial sectors, during and after the project span.
METABUILDING Goals
-It will provide direct innovation support to SMEs by implementing Cascade Funding mechanisms channeled through three types of calls for proposals (SEED, GROW and HARVEST).
-To foster cross-sectoral and cross-border collaboration between SMEs and other players of the enlarged Built Environment Sector, enhancing competitiveness of SMEs and preparing them for international business collaboration.
Through the metaclustering actions, the project will help construction-related clusters in the 6 target countries to achieve together critical mass and share resources and experience, needed to upscale their business scope to Europe.
METABUILDING Platform will put at the reach of SMEs the insourcing of innovative previously developed technology solutions from other industrial sectors and from past EU funded R&D projects.
More info: www.metabuilding-project.eu