AEI Tèxtils, the Catalan Cluster of Advanced Textile Materials, is a partner in the project, InTransit – Strengthening the resilience of textile, aerospace, and construction SMEs to transition towards greener and more digital sectors with social and business innovation, which started in the kicked off on December 15th and 16th in Brussels together with the European Commission representatives.
InTransit aims to strengthen the resilience of textile, aerospace and construction SMEs towards greener and more digital sectors with social and business model, with a mixed support mechanism including individual assessment support and a lump sum and coaching to ensure their consolidation and sustainability.
InTransit strategy to boost competitiveness of European SMEs for their sustainability transition consists of four key pillars:
- INCUBATE a series of joint services to supporting SMEs in identifying market opportunities, needs, and pain points and connecting the different sectors favoring cross- sectoral learning, best practices exchange, and collaborative development.
- INNOVATE support for SMEs with customized advisory services, including assisted self-assessment and circular/digital diagnostic, coaching/training at a strategic level (business model).
- DEVELOP transitional projects by SMEs with financial support through cascade funding, complemented with substantial assistance provided by coaching partners and DIHs.
- SCALE-UP transitions to market with additional custom services, leveraging additional private or public funds through the ESIF or other sources
The project has a total budget of 5 M€ from which 3M€ will be distributed using cascade funding to SMEs and will use 1M€ to provide services to SMEs to thrive their digital and green transition over a period of 36 months.
InTransit is the fourth cascade funding related project after GALACTICA and xBUILD-EU, both of which coordinated by AEI Tèxtils, and EuroBoosTEX. AEI Tèxtils considers cascade funding projects strongly useful for textile SMEs thanks to the reduced administrative burdens, shorter time-to-grant and the facilitated lump-sum mechanisms which makes them truly SME-oriented grants.
In the next three years, AEI Tèxtils aims to launch different calls with over 5M€ in financial support to SMEs, through the 3 ongoing projects: InTransit, EuroBoosTEX and xBUILD-EU.
InTransit project is led by ATEVAL in Valencia, and counts with strong partners such as AEI Tèxtils in Catalonia, CTA in Andalusia, CORALLIA in Greece, PRODUTECH in Portugal, Science Park Graz in Austria, TUS (IDEAM) in Ireland, POLIMI in Italy, IRTJV in France, and CCS in Slovenia.
