The EU Industry Days 2022  took place from 8 until 11 February. This hybrid event brought together more than 3,500 online participants and hosted 75 online sessions with more than 300 speakers. The event’s virtual exhibition showcasing 42 EU projects funded by the European Commission, was visited by more than 1,300 participants. EISMEA projects were among the most visited exhibitors.

The 2022 edition focused on industrial ecosystems’ green and digital transition, which is key for strengthening the resilience of EU industries and SMEs. The conference also included a specific focus on youth and the role they can play in the evolution of European industry, and a special spotlight event dedicated to tourism.

The European Innovation Council “meet the expert” session dedicated to the cooperation between startups and large companies, was attended by 250 online participants. A poll launched during the session showed that one of most difficult challenges of this type of cooperation is building trust between the partners. The speakers, representing big firms and startups, highlighted the key role that initiatives such as the EIC Accelerator program and European Institute of Innovation and Technology support services can play in facilitating these partnerships.

The virtual exhibition covered the main themes of the conference (Green and Digital transition and 2022 European Year of Youth) and featured 35 projects from the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA).

The top 3 most visited booths were: SkillLab.io, EU Social Innovation Competition winner 2021, 200 SME Challenge (Hub Innovazione Trentino) and METABUILDING both funded by the Innosup programme.  

In addition, Wildling Shoes (a project supported by the Enterprise Europe Network) and the India IP Helpdesk where the most active ones, with the highest number of meetings scheduled with participants, showing an increasing interest in circular economy and SMEs internationalization.

The virtual exhibition will remain open and accessible for six months. For more information about the EISMEA projects please see below:

Funded by the European Innovation Council - Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe 

EIC Accelerator

HYCAP project’s goal is to create a more energy efficient replacement for lead-acid batteries for heavy vehicles.

RAMP-PV has developed an environmentally friendly and cost-effective process to revalorise highly pure silicon and silver.

Nestwave’s patented, hybrid-signal technology significantly improves localization accuracy in critical indoor and dense urban environments while greatly reducing power consumption and solution footprint compared to existing solutions.

EU Prize for Women Innovators 2020

Josefien Groot - CEO of Qlayers (high tech wind turbine technology), is the winner of 2020 EU Rising Innovator category. This prize is awarded to promising women innovators under the age of 30.

EU Prize for Women Innovators 2019

Haelixa project, Dr. Michela Puddu, Haelixa’s CEO, is the winner of the 2019 EU Rising Innovator category. The company uses intelligent DNA-based tracing solutions to ensure ethical and transparent industry practices, with special focus on sustainable products such as organic cotton. 

EU Social Innovation Competition winners 2021

Snowball Effect trains and brings together aspiring social entrepreneurs and founders of established social businesses, for them to replicate impactful solutions.

SkillLab Mobile solution that helps people to identify and express their skills. It also matches skills to occupations and training offerings that address skill-gaps.

Zekki_What's up  a digital service from Finland that matches young people with various support services based on an online wellbeing self-assessment quiz.

Horizon 2020

DigiCirc (INNOSUP) empowers SMEs to leverage digital technology as a key enabler for innovative circular products/ services, processes and business models in 3 domains: Circular Cities, Blue Economy, Bioeconomy.

AMULET (INNOSUP) The goal of AMULET is to create new value chains by fostering the penetration of advanced materials in different fields (automotive, aerospace & aeronautics, energy and building sectors) and to significantly contribute to CO2 emissions reduction in the EU.

Metabuilding (INNOSUP) aims at bringing innovative ideas and new technologies to the “traditional” value chain of the Construction sector, and to create an enlarged Built Environment industrial sector by opening the Construction sector to other industries.

BeCorp have created an innovative solution for farmers to test and understand their soil in order to make smart farming decisions.

HARVESTORE develop devices, which will be able to “harvest” energy from heat and light and to “store” it for its use as power supply for IoT nodes at the same time.

KET4Cleanproduction is a platform and network to provide energy/waste saving technology services to manufacturing companies.

PITCCH (INNOSUP) is the pan-European Open Innovation Network in Advanced Technologies. The aim is to facilitate the establishment of structured collaborations between Big Corporations (BCs) as technology seekers with Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) as technology providers.

GreenOffshoreTech aims to facilitate the creation of new products, processes or services with the ambition to make offshore production and transport greener, cleaner and modern towards a resource-efficient economy and EUs Green Deal.

Urban Tech (INNOSUP) will support the acceleration of competitive success of European SMEs through market launch of new or significantly improved products and services with higher value (with higher quality, increased access, eco-innovative, resource efficient and internationally scalable).

200SMEChallenge (INNOSUP) The scope of this project was to allow a selected set of innovation agencies to set up, execute and evaluate the impact of a novel SME innovation support scheme following the tenets of Innovation Challenges.

Funded by the Single Market programme (COSME)

Materalia The main objective of this project is to boost green transition in Metallurgy and Wind Energy industries.

WORTH is the sole European project where designers, SMEs, manufacturers, and tech providers work together to develop innovative, design-oriented business ideas.

ELIIT aims at developing new materials, combining low environmental impact and a high level of comfort and performance.

Intelligent Cities Challenge is supporting 136 EU and international cities to build ecosystems of smart growth, harnessing the benefits of advanced technologies while prioritizing the economic growth, the wellbeing of the citizens, and the environmental and social sustainability.

Enterprise Europe Network supported projects 

Enrico Raimondo is a startup company developing new products for fashion and luxury sectors. Mr Raimondo developed a new dedicated production process, protected by the registered design and filing another patent.

Nablawave has a proven method in proposing research and development activities and innovation processes to its customers, derived from a long-lasting experience in the aerospace field.

Nuromedia offers more than 15 years of expertise in software engineering, innovation of business concepts and company building. With state of the art methods and techniques, they develop sustainable solutions with a sense for business, trends and feasibility.

BeefyGreen, a Dutch company manufacturing a mushroom-based meat substitute from the stems of oyster mushrooms received the award in the 'Stepping Ahead' category. This visionary enterprise showed the best example of positive results, focusing on digitalisation, sustainability and innovation.

Resortecs is a start-up company in the textile and fashion sector, offering global patented solutions that enable garment recycling - thanks to automatic disassembly of apparel at industrial scale.

Wildling Shoes makes minimal shoes, fairly produced and made from sustainable materials that allow experiencing walking in a truly natural way. All of this while ensuring fair working conditions and environmental standards.

IPR Helpdesk

International Intellectual Property Rights Helpdesks (Africa, China, South-East Asia, Latin America, India) is a service that supports small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from the European Union (EU) and COSME associated countries to both protect and enforce their Intellectual Property (IP) rights by providing free information and services.

European IP Helpdesk supports European SMEs and research teams involved in cross-border business and/or EU-funded research activities manage, disseminate and valorize their Intellectual Property.

Consumers / Products Safety

CASP stands for Coordinated Activities on the Safety of Products. It enables all authorities of EU/EEA countries responsible for market surveillance to cooperate to reinforce the safety of products places on the European markets.