PRESS RELEASE - VIDA awards 11 demonstration projects and to 32 SMEs (Second Call)

The VIDA Awards Ceremony Event 2020 took place in CzechInvest – Agentura pro podporu podnikání a investic in Prague, on the 6th of February 2020, and was hosted by the local VIDA partner Nanoprogress. All new granted Demonstration Vouchers and VIDA clusters participated in the event and the SMEs had the opportunity to present their innovative technological solutions for the agri-food value chain and resource efficiency uptake, such as water and energy.

Industrial Technologies

Food and Natural Resources

Energy

© VIDA Team

VIDA aims to accelerate the implementation of new solutions in the food sector which can improve the usage of water and energy with the ambition to reduce losses and consumption. VIDA has three different types of funding vouchers to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) seeking new resource efficient solutions. The Demonstration Voucher (DV) offers consortia an opportunity to demonstrate their new developments on site of a ‘prospective user’.

At the Prague ceremony VIDA awarded to 32 SMEs that pitched their 11 highly innovative demonstration and cross-sectoral projects, submitted in the Second Call for the VIDA Demonstration Vouchers (DV). During the event there was great interaction among the awarded SMEs, the VIDA clusters and partners of the VIDA project. Each project has reflected about their approach to contributing to industrial value chain creation in Europe. The event was also an excellent opportunity to promote matchmaking and synergies among SMEs, especially the ones whose processes and solutions are complementary.

VIDA has granted more than €2.9 million of the funds from the Demonstration Voucher (DV) scheme to 19 DV proposals. VIDA has thus granted around €237,900 from the Validation Voucher (VV) scheme to the 10 awarded VV proposals. For the Innovation Support Voucher (ISV) scheme, VIDA has allocated around €77,000 to the 17 selected ISV proposals. In total, over €3 million has been distributed to the 46 innovation projects.

VIDA is also providing coaching and mentoring services to the awarded projects and SMEs through VIDA trainings. The recordings of the online training courses are available on the VIDA website (https://vidaproject.eu/category/webinar/)

• How to innovate successfully in an international context

• Creating an appropriate framework for collaboration in innovation projects: intercultural skills and consortium agreement

• Communication skills: oral presentations for innovation projects dissemination

Learn more: www.vidaproject.eu [e-mail] Follow us: @h2020vida

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme, under Grant Agreement nº 777795.

Disclaimer: The content of this document represents the view of the author only and is his/her sole responsibility: it cannot be considered to reflect the views of the European Commission and/or the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME). The European Commission and the Agency do not accept responsibility for the use that may be made of the information it contains.

Keywords

H2020VIDA, Agrifood, Clusters, innovation, SME