Periodic Reporting for period 1 - GALATEA (GROW AND ACCELERATE YOUR SMART PROJECTS IN NEW VALUE CHAINS OF THE EUROPEAN BLUE ECONOMY)
Reporting period: 2020-06-01 to 2021-11-30
The European Union’s blue economy has been identified as fundamental to reach the sustainability and economic goals targeted through the European Green Deal and the Recovery Plan has strong impact in terms of growth and jobs in the European union. GALATEA has chosen to target 4 main domains of the Blue Economy for which a high potential in terms of smart and sustainable growth have been identified: ports, ships, shipyards and maritime surveillance.
GALATEA aims to develop new cross-sectoral and cross-border industrial value chains, supporting innovative SMEs and facilitated by clusters, to foster the development of Blue Growth key industries in Europe. This development will be based on the construction of new industrial value chains and the reconfiguration of existing ones driven by the integration of technologies and know-how from aerospace and ICT communities to Blue Growth.
To reach this overall objective, GALATEA has implemented a strong methodology inspired by previous collaboration between most of the partners. This methodology is thought in 3 steps:
1) Emergence of challenges: GALATEA have identified the end-users needs and societal challenges related to Smart Port, Smart Ship, Smart Shipyard and maritime surveillance;
2) Emergence of ideas: GALATEA have favoured the emergence of cross-sectoral and cross-border project ideas thanks to a open space solution and the organisation of events devoted to SMEs;
3) Innovation support: GALATEA is providing direct support to SMEs thanks to the launch of Open Calls for vouchers and Call for services that help SMEs to fund their innovation development and to growth their businesses.
GALATEA aims to develop new cross-sectoral and cross-border industrial value chains, supporting innovative SMEs and facilitated by clusters, to foster the development of Blue Growth key industries in Europe. This development will be based on the construction of new industrial value chains and the reconfiguration of existing ones driven by the integration of technologies and know-how from aerospace and ICT communities to Blue Growth.
To reach this overall objective, GALATEA has implemented a strong methodology inspired by previous collaboration between most of the partners. This methodology is thought in 3 steps:
1) Emergence of challenges: GALATEA have identified the end-users needs and societal challenges related to Smart Port, Smart Ship, Smart Shipyard and maritime surveillance;
2) Emergence of ideas: GALATEA have favoured the emergence of cross-sectoral and cross-border project ideas thanks to a open space solution and the organisation of events devoted to SMEs;
3) Innovation support: GALATEA is providing direct support to SMEs thanks to the launch of Open Calls for vouchers and Call for services that help SMEs to fund their innovation development and to growth their businesses.
From the beginning of the project to the end of the mid-term period, GALATEA partners have worked together to reach the set-up objectives and towards a support to SMEs. Several actions have been done:
- Identification of 22 challenges in the target Blue Growth domains thanks to discussions with end-users;
- Organisation of 2 editions of Innovation Clubs in which GALATEA has favoured the sharing of ideas and skills and promoted the emergence of project ideas thanks to a design thinking methodology implemented remotely, on GALATEA open space platform;
- Organisation of 2 editions of B2B matchmaking sessions, hold on-line, in which participants had the opportunity to attend a webinar giving some detailed information on the GALATEA project and the Open Calls for vouchers and services and to meet potential partners to submit a GALATEA proposal and/or to build concrete partnerships for further business developments;
- Launch, evaluation and selection of the 1st Open Call for vouchers (January-May 2021). GALATEA consortium had design and implemented a complete process to enable SMEs to submit a proposal, to proceed to a fair and quality evaluation and to select 14 innovative projects addressing the identified challenges and supporting 24 SMEs;
- Launch, evaluation and selection of the Open Call for services. Continuously open, this opportunity provides to SMEs business coaching services such as business model elaboration, technology expertise, internationalisation and funding opportunities;
- Launch of the 2nd Open Call for vouchers in September. The evaluation and selection will be done in the 2nd reporting period of the project;
- Follow-up of the SMEs funded through the 1st Open Call for vouchers thanks to continuous direct contacts and monitoring of their projects.
- Identification of 22 challenges in the target Blue Growth domains thanks to discussions with end-users;
- Organisation of 2 editions of Innovation Clubs in which GALATEA has favoured the sharing of ideas and skills and promoted the emergence of project ideas thanks to a design thinking methodology implemented remotely, on GALATEA open space platform;
- Organisation of 2 editions of B2B matchmaking sessions, hold on-line, in which participants had the opportunity to attend a webinar giving some detailed information on the GALATEA project and the Open Calls for vouchers and services and to meet potential partners to submit a GALATEA proposal and/or to build concrete partnerships for further business developments;
- Launch, evaluation and selection of the 1st Open Call for vouchers (January-May 2021). GALATEA consortium had design and implemented a complete process to enable SMEs to submit a proposal, to proceed to a fair and quality evaluation and to select 14 innovative projects addressing the identified challenges and supporting 24 SMEs;
- Launch, evaluation and selection of the Open Call for services. Continuously open, this opportunity provides to SMEs business coaching services such as business model elaboration, technology expertise, internationalisation and funding opportunities;
- Launch of the 2nd Open Call for vouchers in September. The evaluation and selection will be done in the 2nd reporting period of the project;
- Follow-up of the SMEs funded through the 1st Open Call for vouchers thanks to continuous direct contacts and monitoring of their projects.
At the end of the project, GALATEA aims to support at least 100 SMEs through the various activities implemented (Open Calls for vouchers and services, events and direct support provided by the clusters). The organisation of the Final Showcase event should have a strong impact on SMEs visibility at the national, European and global level and should enable them to develop further innovative activities. The impact on the four targeted domains should be valuable as well in terms of technological development and environmental impact, as SMEs are developing innovative solutions addressing concrete needs of the ports, ships, shipyards and maritime surveillance.