On the occasion of the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the conference, which was jointly organised by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology (BMVIT), the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) and the European Commission, was held in Vienna on 29-31 October 2018.
The programme included plenary and parallel sessions, an exhibition, a matchmaking event and interactive sessions such as fish-bowl and world café.
Plenary sessions with great political impact on the industrial environment followed by different parallel sessions were organised around the following three pillars:
• Technologies for sustainable growth
• Innovative industry for citizens
• Ecosystem and framing conditions
Solar technology pioneer Bertrand Piccard and Infineon CEO Sabine Herlitschka delivered the keynote speeches at the conference.
102 speakers took an active role during this conference with 20 parallel sessions.
95 expert talks on topics such as frugal innovation, circular and bioeconomy, design innovations, artificial intelligence and energy efficiency in production were complemented by 28 exhibitors offering insights into current developments and initiatives in European research funding as well as product innovations developed by various companies.
5 site visits to leading companies gave the possibility to gain insights, which 121 participants used.
The matchmaking event on the 30th of October was co-organised by the Enterprise Europe Network 924 matchmaking meetings were organised with 370 unique participants. 739 non-national meetings and 185 national meetings were scheduled.
At the conference, the ‘Horizon Prize on Materials for Clean Air’ was awarded for the first time. The award, including prize money of 3 million euros, is conferred to cost-efficient, sustainable and innovative design-orientated material solutions.
1,185 persons from 51 countries attended this conference. To reach this figure, communication and promotion were essential for a successful conference. The communication strategy was hand focused on stakeholders with interest in this field. The conference was advertised by and during the Austrian Presidency related to research and innovation. 6 press releases were made to inform the media. Furthermore, related initiatives were invited to hold their meetings one day prior to the conference, on 29 October. There was a communication package of the conference and it consisted of
• announcement flyer
• info sheets for matchmaking, World café + Fish Bowl, exhibition
• short presentation about the conference
• short promotion text about the conference
To communicate easily with the (potential) attendees all over Europe, social media channels (mainly twitter) were essential for communication. The INDTECH2018 conference was finally promoted on 189 different websites (mainly European). The most efficient way for communication was via the NCP-network and via contacting directly the stakeholder platforms.
This conference was a green event.
