Boosting Widening Digital Innovation Hubs

Project Information

BOWI

Grant agreement ID: 873155

DOI

10.3030/873155

Project closed

EC signature date 5 December 2019

Start date 1 January 2020

End date 30 June 2023

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 8 003 158,47

EU contribution

€ 7 838 134,98

Coordinated by

UAB CIVITTA
Lithuania

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - BOWI (Boosting Widening Digital Innovation Hubs)

Reporting period: 2022-01-01 to 2023-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The key objective of the BOWI project was to create a DIH widening network that supports the collaboration of new DIHs in regions where the SAE (https://smartanythingeverywhere.eu/) and I4MS (https://i4ms.eu/) technologies are underrepresented (widening hubs) and DIHs that are well established and highly experienced in these technologies (mature hubs).
BOWI project was addressing the challenges created by the lack of knowledge, expertise and other capacities regarding SAE/I4MS technologies in European industries during the past 7 years. BOWI supported widening hubs and SMEs/Mid-Caps by uptaking innovative SAE and I4MS related technologies, with the help provided by mature DIHs and the mechanism that work as a tool in establishing a sustainable connection and collaboration between all stakeholders mentioned above.
BOWI pursued the following objectives within the project:
1. Establish an active DIH (BOWI) widening community in which the emerging widening hubs can access the pool of expertise available in mature hubs in order to set up collaboration in application experiments with SMEs. This includes participation from mature hubs, investors and regions, as well as widening hubs.
2. Develop a long-term sustainable blended finance accelerator programme to enable support for widening hubs on their journey to become a high-quality boosters of the uptake of SAE/I4MS technologies in their regions.
3. Increase sustainability of widening hubs by improving their business and technology services, as well as by creating pan-EU collaborations with mature DIHs in other regions.
4. Enhance the capacity of taking up SAE/I4MS technologies in regions that are currently underrepresented by conducting 4 technology-transfer experiments with each selected widening hub.
5. Demonstrate a structural collaboration between widening hubs and mature hubs by showing replicable cross-border widening approach. The widening hubs will improve their services to the industry not only by developing business models for importing/exporting services, but also by aligning activities in both hubs. This is achieved through combining concrete experiments and creating sustainable corridors between regions.

In summary, the specific objectives of BOWI were:
● Establishing an active DIH widening community with 25 widening hubs and 20 mature hubs as active members, and 450 organizations as active users of the community collaboration portal. Sustainable widening collaboration business model is validated through continuous long-term blended finance accelerator programme.
● Ensuring that 15 widening hubs offering I4MS/SAE technology for SMEs/Mid-Caps in their regions, have developed business models and business services portfolios as well as secure additional regional funding.
● Conducting 60 technology transfer experiments supporting SMEs/Mid-Caps to take up innovative widening hub SAE/I4MS technologies in their regions, assisted by mature hubs in other regions.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The primary objectives for 2022-2023 were as follows:
• Organizing a multi-regional Open Call to select 36 European SMEs and Mid-Caps from industrial regions underrepresented in S4E/I4MS, willing to implement 10-month application experiments with support from local widening hubs and mature DIHs. The mature DIHs guided both SMEs and widening hubs during the implementation of Technology Transfer Experiments (TTEs).
• Providing comprehensive support to 36 TTEs over their 10-month support programme, offering a wide range of technical and non-technical services. This included technology assessment and transfer services, conducting and evaluating the TTEs, fostering collaboration between SMEs, widening hubs and mature hubs, and establishing a sustainable DIH community.
• Ensuring project sustainability beyond the BOWI project's conclusion. This involved creating a business model and plan for the BOWI network, launching a blended finance accelerator programme and membership model, increasing awareness and participation in the BOWI network across regions. An essential aspect of sustainability was training and coaching widening and mature hubs to facilitate corridor creation. Based on BOWI definition of corridors, BOWI coaching was put in place to contribute to enabling the creation of a collaboration plan between two or more hubs in different geographical areas.
Additionally, the BOWI project continued to facilitate collaboration among widening and mature DIHs within the involved regions by:
• Establishing an active DIH widening community.
• Developing a sustainable, long-term blended finance accelerator programme.
• Strengthening the capacity to adopt SAE/I4MS technologies.
• Replicating the cross-border widening approach.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Initiatives of building corridors in between the regions are incidental and do not lead to a vibrant and sustainable activity beyond the initial event. In BOWI, if we achieve the structured long-lasting collaborations via sustainable corridors in between DIHs, we would achieve such regional impact as:
- increased uptake of SAE/I4MS technologies in widening regions;
- increased business competitiveness in widening regions;
- increased innovation capacity in widening regions;
- new international business channels for established mature hubs and emerging widening hubs.

The BOWI assets and interregional corridor approach will be sustained after the project by focusing the activities towards a train-the-trainer Academy for Corridor Forging Facilitators (CFFs). The outreach and community will be strengthened by connecting the BOWI approach to a training Academy for CFFs to a broader network, namely DIHNET community. This ‘DIHNET Academy’ will train CFFs, providing them with the skills and capabilities, as well as practical tools to forge interregional collaborations and strengthen the orchestration of the regional strategic networks and ecosystem.

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