CLiCAM project (101120555) is a new project funded under the Horizon Europe program which started on September 1st, 2023, with an official Kick-off meeting happening on September 27th, 2023. The consortium consists of 4 academic institutions: FunGlass as coordinator, BRNO UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY (BUT), Institute of Plasma Physics of the CAS (IPP), and POLITECHNIKA WROCLAWSKA / Wroclaw University of Science and Technology (WUST), and 7 industrial partners: LITHOZ GMBH, TREIBACHER INDUSTRIE AG, INTERPANE ENTWICKLUNGS- UND BERATUNGSGESELLSCHAFT MBH, 3D CENTER SP. Z O. O. , OUEST COATING (PMG), CASTOLIN SP ZOO, ZOZ GMBH. The project’s main goal is to cultivate future leaders, so-called ERA Talents in research and innovations through intersectoral collaboration.
The Kick-off meeting was held on-site as well as online, starting with a presentation full of useful information and implementation tips given by our project officer Ms. Alina-Maria Bercea, followed by presentations from the consortium beneficiaries. The morning part was specifically useful because thanks to the introduction of each partner’s work we could see a strong potential for cooperation not only in the CLiCAM but also in the future proposal in the Horizon Europe program. The afternoon session was focused on details of the project work packages, discussing ERA Talent’s secondment schedules and content, and discussing the follow-up actions about ERA Talent’s reintegration. The financial presentations were devoted to the action plan for the upcoming 12 months.
Too often, great research ideas as well as talented researchers from Europe are acquired by non-European players who turn them into impactful innovations whose economic benefits are realized outside the EU. In addition, the innovation divide between the widening countries and the other member states persists (patent applications per million inhabitants not reaching 15% of the EU benchmark). The problem of the inability to transform the potential of basic research into the development of commercially viable innovations thus becomes a serious obstacle for the sustainable economic development of countries such as the Czechia, Poland, and Slovakia.
In response, the CLiCAM project will cultivate participating ERA talents into leaders who will make innovation happen through intersectoral collaboration. The innovation leadership provided by ERA talents shall transform participating research organisations from widening countries into innovation beacons turning basic research into sustainable prosperity in fields of coatings and additive manufacturing. In doing so, the project will create an R&I ecosystem contributing to the development of relevant key enabling technologies across three domains critical for Europe’s technological sovereignty: advanced manufacturing, advanced materials, and life-science technologies.
The actions of the consortium will concern three pillars of innovation:
i) people – cross-sector secondments and Innovation Leadership training,
ii) processes – reintegration actions and benchmarking initiative,
iii) infrastructure – two virtual test bed ecosystems for better use of existing research facilities.
The long-term impact will be to strengthen human capital base in R&I (qualified personnel for impactful innovation), initiate technology transfer activities (patent applications, licensing transactions, contractual research) and generate future R&D investments (intersectoral research projects, virtual test bed ecosystems, spin-offs).
