The SoTecIn Factory (Social and Technological Innovation Factory for low-carbon and circular industrial value chains) is a project funded by the EU program Horizon Europe. Through a collaborative environment, the project mains objective was to support social entrepreneurs in increasing the circularity of three key product value chains: packaging and plastics; textiles; and food, water and nutrients. Being aligned with the both the EU Action Plan for Circular Economy and the Sustainable Development Goals, SoTecIn Factory is on a mission to drive more sustainable and resilient value chains by building a mission-oriented community that brings together industry, entrepreneurs, social innovators, experts, researchers and investors. Besides, it promotes a culture of social innovation in the European manufacturing industry by supporting highly scalable technologies and new governance models, based on stewardship-ownership principles, to drive systemic change.
SoTecIn Factory community has representatives from 7 European regions, interested in the design and management of the missions that guided the identification of real challenges in the circularity of the three selected value chains. Based on the 7 missions and 23 challenges, SoTecIn Factory conducted two open calls and provided financial and capacity-building support to 50 technologically savvy social entrepreneurs (with circular and social projects) of key product value chains. Out of these, SoTecIn Factory co-developed 30 pre-commercialization demonstrators, which were presented to the public in a two days event held in May 20th in Porto, Portugal, called SoTecIn Factory start-up day. The presented demonstrators targeted higher-value circular economy strategies, i.e. refuse, rethink, reduce, reuse, repair, refurbish and remanufacture.
