Launched by an international consortium of 10 partners from Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Lithuania, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, the European funded project RespiceSME - Regional and National European Support for Photonics Innovation Clusters enhancing SMEs Innovation Potential - started on January, 1st, 2016.
This Coordination Support Action (CSA) funded within the Photonics Public Private Partnership Initiative aims at reinforcing the innovative capacity of Europe’s photonics SMEs, clusters and national platforms by stimulating targeted collaborations in and beyond photonics. RespiceSME proposes new approaches for stronger innovative effectiveness using a 3-dimensional approach. In the first dimension, RespiceSME will evaluate and stimulate the innovation potential in order to strengthen the innovation capacity of high-tech photonics SMEs. In the second dimension, RespiceSME will enhance the global technological exploitation of photonics innovation capacity by analysing different value chains valuable for high-tech photonics SMEs.
This will allow significantly leveraging non-photonic sectors such as Environment/ Energy, Transport and Manufacturing and thereby, enabling the penetration of new markets and/or new application areas close to markets. The third dimension focuses on creating a bridge over the ‘Valley of Death’ to increase the competitiveness of the European photonics sector by developing Best Practices for enabling photonics SMEs access European and regional Research Technology Organisations, harnessing educational and training programmes aligned with their specific needs, determining next generation regional innovative smart specialisation strategies and providing access to public and private financial supports.