Circular Innovation Hubs Integration

• Information asymmetries across value chains: Insufficient intelligence and evidence on ‘viability’ of circular business cases/technologies across value chains
• Disconnected demonstration infrastructure in Europe, which hampers proper investigation of such viability

• Connecting demonstration infrastructure in Europe at the adequate level of granularity, i.e. per application domain
• Connecting demand (i.e. companies asking for solutions/support to deploy circular business cases) and supply (companies or technology centers able to offer solutions/support to do so)

• “Circular Innovation Hubs” are designed as connected pilot facilities to serve companies in multiple sectors and across existing value chains
• To test viability, to increase visibility and to de-risk downstream private investments in new circular industrial cases

The demonstration will be carried out by adopting the platform for connecting nodes and regional infrastructures for specific cases detected earlier on during the project (pilots and task 3.6). Initial demonstration will be carried out by connecting regional infrastructure from the “De-and Remanufacturing for Circular Economy” network (partnership under the Vanguard Initiative with partners located in Lombardy, Basque Country, Tampere, Flanders, Scotland, Emilia Romagna, Norte, and Saxony). Other inter-regional partnerships, such as the 3D printing network, networks of Digital Innovation Hubs or other SP3 partnership will be also investigated.

This pilot aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of the DigiPrime platform in supporting the integration and business operations of European networks of Circular Innovation Hubs. After the identification of potentially meaningful circular business cases (under pilot 5), pilot 6 will offer customized support to further define and specify the case so that partners can be identified, approached and matched to provide support and test the technical and economic viability of the circular business case.

This task will demonstrate the platform functionality while supporting Circular Innovation Hubs in their operation and service delivery activities to the end users of these pilot facilities. The services provided by the DigiPrime platform, in particular those developed in T3.6 and T3.8, will be adopted and data about the capabilities of the pilot infrastructures will be populated. Then the service portfolio offered by the network will be visualized in the relevant nodes of the cross-sectorial federation and the delivery of services will be supported by the platform for at least 1 year of pilot network operation. The target goal of this pilot is to attract at least 15 new customers for the pilot network through the use of the platform along the year of operation monitored during the pilot.