The incorporation of the CE principles and a tremendous shift in entrepreneurs’ mindsets were enabled through design thinking methodologies and enabling technologies. After 39 months of the project's lifetime, it is certain that the goal was achieved successfully, and C-Voucher provoked not only several highly disruptive initiatives but more importantly embedded the circular economy business models across the European SMEs.
To implement this approach, 4 open calls for 2 different acceleration programmes were launched during the lifespan of the project, resulting in 475 proposals submitted (177 in the Circularity calls and 298 in the Adopters’ calls) from 32 different countries. The calls were carefully designed with the help of entire ecosystems, i.e. project partners, external experts, industry clusters and regional networks of business facilitators.
C-Voucher has contributed to the transition of industrial value chains to the Circular Economy approach by supporting the development and implementation of 12 Circular Solutions and, inspired by those, 42 Circular Business Cases, which have set illustrative use cases for their own sectoral domains and others and their regional ecosystems.
The 12 SMEs selected to take part in the 2 editions of the Circularity Programme received support from the Regional Innovation Hubs (RIHs) and their corresponding Designers in Residence (DiRs) during 9 months. The aim of the SMEs’ projects was to define the Circular Solutions and - based on the selected technologies coming from the Technology Disruptor(s) - to develop new, circular business models. The implementation was facilitated with vouchers (worth up to €58K) and mentoring programmes, where SMEs were given customized coaching and mentoring services leading to exploration of further funding opportunities (public and private). This last element - the funding mobilized outside of C-Voucher - proved the real value of the project’s acceleration programmes and showed the unlimited opportunities for the alumni.
Another 42 proposals, inspired by those Circular Solutions or by the CE Building Blocks suggested by C-Voucher, were selected to obtain a lump sum of €15 K each and join the 3-months Circular Value Replication Programme. Here, the RIHs and the DiRs (together with Business mentors) supported the SMEs to create business cases and to plan for the implementation of their circular ideas.
Throughout the work with the accelerated companies, C-Voucher has confirmed a good multinational collaboration and has developed a hands-on unique acceleration concept, where Regional Innovation Hubs, Designers-in-Residence, Business mentors and investors came together to help SMEs by:
* defining the most suitable Circular Solutions and identifying the better stakeholders within the own ecosystem or new ones (6 Regional Innovation Hubs and 12 Designers-in-Residence advising the 54 supported solutions)
* selecting the most appropriate technical enablers for the transformation and minimizing the cost associated with the development or implementation of specific technologies (22 disruptors being hired through vouchers, worth €649,896.44 in FSTP)
* improving their funding possibilities to further deploy their transition journey to the Circular Economy approach (further 2.66 M€ raised in public funding and 5.66 M€ raised in private funds). In the case of Circular Solutions, the additional funding raised, including both public and private, was 1,49 million EUR. In the case of Circular Business Cases, the additional funding obtained amounts to 6,65 million EUR.
* getting exposure of their business cases, in order to help not only to increase visibility among potential investors and partners but also to help other SMEs in their domains to become aware of the opportunities related to Circular Economy and to show them how to capitalize on them by leveraging in enabler technologies.
