EU-GREAT! Project launches website

The High Value Manufacturing Catapult is proud to be part of the consortium of the EU-GREAT! Project, which today launched its website.

EU-GREAT! project launches website and will investigate ways of boosting the Financing of Large-Scale Research, Development and Innovation Initiatives across Europe.

The High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult is proud to be part of the consortium of the EU-GREAT! Project, which today launched its website, http://eu-great.com. Led by TECNALIA and funded by the European Commission through Horizon 2020, EU-GREAT! will investigate the best practices, approaches and  policy framework to boost the financing of large-scale research, development and innovation initiatives across Europe.

Europe faces the challenge of translating lab-scale research outcomes into useful and commercialised products and services which enhance industrial competitiveness, generate economic growth and create jobs. This demands a boost in finance for Large-Scale Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) initiatives that successfully bridge the gap between innovation and commercial application.

Such Large-Scale RDI initiatives are often funded by a complex combination of different public and private sources including European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF), Horizon 2020 and national, regional and private investment programmes. Industrial stakeholders of such initiatives have to raise investment and administer multiple projects that have different financial rules, audit requirements, legal frameworks and state-aid implications. This is a challenge which often leads them to use or create open access research facilities, innovation value chains and shared knowledge.

Governmental stakeholders, at the same time, deal with the demanding tasks of stimulating, co-financing, monitoring and auditing innovation initiatives, as well as demonstrate their economic and environmental impacts.

EU-GREAT! will investigate the barriers and best practice in combining different public and private funding sources, specifically to translate successful fundamental research results and lab-scale prototypes into industrial demonstrators, production pilot-lines, first market replications and commercialised products and services.

Through interaction and dialogue with industry, researchers, investors and governmental stakeholders, EU-GREAT! will identify, analyse and validate the best practices for the formation and management of large-scale RDI initiatives. EU-GREAT! will make recommendations to policy-makers on improving the administrative and policy framework of public-private funding instruments for combining funding, in order to stimulate greater investment and creation of more large-scale RDI initiatives in Europe.

About EU-GREAT!

EU-GREAT! is funded by the European Commission (Contract # 646107) through the Horizon 2020 programme, Topic NMP-37-2014 – “Practical experience and facilitating combined funding for large-scale RDI initiatives”. The project runs for 2 years from 1st January 2015 . Led by of TECNALIA R&I the consortium includes: CEA, TNO, VTT, High-Value Manufacturing Catapult, INESC TEC, Plastiques, NANOfutures, ArcelorMittal, CDTI and Wrocław University of Technology. The project is co-ordinated by Begoña Sanchez from TECNALIA R&I. For more details visit: http://eu-great.com or email info@eu-great.com to contact the Project Dissemination and Exploitation Manager, Shak Gohir from the High-Value Manufacturing Catapult.