IndTech 2022 was held on 27-29th June 2022, in Grenoble, France as a conference that is focused on innovation in industrial technologies. The specific theme of the 2022 edition was chosen to be Driving a competitive, sustainable and sovereign industry for the future of Europe. This conference was officially a sponsored event of the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The format combined keynote presentations, parallel sessions with round table discussion, a large exhibition area, matchmaking and several industrial site visits. It provided an excellent opportunity for experts from industry, academia and policy to exchange information and to strengthen collaboration. The conference structure was based on a 3-day event, with the first day reserved for side events, workshops, industrial site visits and a welcome reception. The main conference sessions took place on the second and third days, for a total of 3 plenary sessions and 16 parallel sessions. In total, 622 participants from 33 countries visited this conference. The participation to the conference was free of charge.
The primary venue was envisioned to be easily accessible from the Grenoble train station and with enough capacity to accept at least 800 people. The venue also needed to be compatible with a hybrid or full digital event, in case the Covid situation required a switch away from a person-to-person event. The selected main conference site was the Maison Minatec in Grenoble.
Early in the project, a Steering Committee brought together all of the required skills to respond to the requirements of the project. Continuous interaction with the various stakeholders, including the European Commission and the French ministries, provided the validation loops required for moving forward at each critical step in the process. The nomination of recognized experts to the Advisory Board provided high-level visibility for identifying speakers and putting together attractive sessions.
One of the main challenges in the speaker selection process was to respect equality of gender, diversity of nationality and provide a good mix of research, education, policy makers and industry leaders in each session. The iterations of the selection process took significantly more time than originally expected, but the result turned out to be highly rewarding with an excellent and diverse panel. The final selection produced an agenda with 93 speakers and chairs, of which 48% were women, across 3 plenary and 16 parallel sessions.
Promotion of the event was critical for achieving a high number of attendees and extensive exhibitors in the networking area. Links with the Commission website and existing industrial associations such as EMIRI, EFFRA, A.SPIRE ECP4, Polymeris and others were instrumental in relaying the announcements and promoting the event. The visibility of the event on the partners’ websites, each having its own followers, was one of the most essential elements of the event marketing and made it possible to draw participants from many countries and affiliations.
The contribution of event partners to the social media attention was also important, where exhibitors presented their stands and welcomed their followers to visit them, speakers announced their engagement in the sessions, and participants who simply reported their presence at the event for their network to see. The best measure of a successful event can be derived from the comments of the participants.
A calculation of the carbon footprint of the event estimated that the event generated 183 tons of CO2, of which 80% were related to participant transportation to and from the event.
