OITBs interconnect in a first public workshop to promote the ecosystem

On 4th of May, the FlexFunction2Sustain, supported by the Safe-N-Medtech Open Innovation Test Bed (OITB), organised a public workshop with the core aim of promoting the OITB ecosystem to relevant stakeholders and Industry. The event gathered representatives of the most relevant participants in this ecosystem: industry, academia, research and technology organisations and business support actors. The workshop took place as a satellite event of the EuroNanoForum 2021, organised under the auspices of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

At the opening of the workshop, the European Commission DG RTD, Head of Prosperity Directorate Peter Dröll said: these Open Innovation Test Beds provide an important element in the EU ecosystem for research and innovation. They can only reach their full potential if they are interconnected. This workshops is also about this interconnection so that OITBs can provide integrated support to innovators at different stages of technological development. We expect that this network of European Open Innovation Test Beds reach out and deliver services to many users, especially Small and Medium Enterprises. These OITBs are expected to provide services in a sustainable way, for many years and beyond the end of the projects’ duration. These test beds will provide improved industry productivity and accelerate innovation in their specific dedicated domains. And this is already happening.

The workshop also helped creating a common understanding on how OITBs can make industries’ life easier. End-users’ talks where industrial stakeholders provided feedback on how the OITB are delivering their services and boosting innovation also helped us learning about the expectations of users towards an OITB. First and second generation OITBs presented their portfolio of services and added value to customers.

Read the full summary of the workshop (here).

If you missed the chance to join us, you can watch the full recorded session (here) and download the presentations (here).