Objective
Innovation activities in the scattered and SME dominated textile sector, with the exception of larger groups, often lack continuity, strategic direction, and, above all, funds. R&D support services and grants are well established at regional, national and European level. However, when the project reaches the stage where a prototype can demonstrate viability, access to risk capital, including loan and guarantee schemes, is a big barrier. Although private equity and venture capital activities have been lately experiencing a great development in Europe, they are underdeveloped in the textile-clothing sector. Furthermore the highly complex filiere complicate the assessment of risks for investors, especially concerning sensitive knowledge sharing and intangible assets management. Enterprises are still mostly family owned and with basic managerial skills, very reluctant to loose company control even in kind of fresh and advanced managerial professionalism brought in by risk capital funds. This proposal will establish a European Textile and Clothing innovation financing expert network, whose activities and findings will be closely related to the European Textile Technology Platform.
This will be achieved by:
- Identification and analysis of sector's specificities;
- Development and validation of tools and guidance materials;
- Mobilising finance investors, incubators and investing enterprises in the sector to contribute to the activities of the network;
- Organisation of roundtables and specific workshops to discuss relevant issues and validating the tools and relevant materials produced by the project;
- Establishment of a map, at European level, of appropriate funding sources, including the development of a rating system of those funds that could be considered as the most suitable for firms in the sector;
- Preparation of policy recommendations;
- Dissemination of results and exploitation of synergies with on-going Gate2Growth projects
Field of science
- /engineering and technology/materials engineering/textiles
Call for proposal
FP6-2004-INNOV-6
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
CA - Coordination action
Coordinator
Brussels
Belgium
Participants (8)
Aosta
Genova
Denkendorf
Krakow
Dresden
Chemnitz
Massa
Gent
