Digital Innovation Hub Networks

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DIHNET.EU project

DIHNET.EU: EU supports the collaboration among Digital Innovation Hub Networks across Europe

The DIHNET.EU project supports the coordination of European, national and regional initiates directly supporting the digital transformation and Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs). The project aims to create a sustainable pan-European network of networks, with a focus on regional DIHs.

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DIHNET.EU

will create a pan-European
network of DIHs
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DIHNET.EU

will boost DIHs
collaboration
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DIHNET.EU

will offer services
and tools to DIHs
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DIHNET.EU

invites you to join
the DIHs community

Added value through coordination and collaboration

At the moment there is a vast number of networking activities related to DIHs in Europe. However, many of these initiatives have limited connection between each other, especially if the technologies are different. The DIHNET.EU project supports these networks and initiatives by creating a coordination mechanism, creating synergies and addressing common issues.

More specifically, DIHNET.EU contributes by:

Consortium partners

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TNO (project leader), is one of the major internationally oriented contract research and technology organisations in Europe contributing to the innovation capacity of businesses and government.

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TECNALIA Research & Innovation is the first privately funded applied research & technology organisation in Spain and one of the leading such centres in Europe.
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FundingBox Accelerator is a non-profitable initiative promoting and launching technological & innovative businesses in Europe.

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euRobotics, is a Brussels based non-profit association gathering all stakeholders in robotics working together in a common roadmap for research & technological development at EU level.

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BLUMORPHO is an innovation and business private accelerator specialised in DeepTech and digital systems, collaborating with all innovation stakeholders.

Luxinnovation offers a wide portfolio of services to companies and public research organisations in order to foster innovation, thus supporting the Government’s economic development objectives.

The agency also ensures that Luxembourg continues to attract international investment, companies and skills that are a perfect fit for the country.

Business models to create sustainable collaboration

The DIHNET.EU project aim is to organise and facilitate the collaboration between Digital Innovation Hubs in Europe.

European collaboration between technology oriented and local DIHs will develop and bring full growth potential if all stakeholders take benefits and generate value from it. In this respect, the efficiency of business models generating a specific European added-value out of this pan-European collaboration is key.

DIHNET.EU’s objective is to identify, develop and promote the diversity of new business models that foster knowledge sharing and technologies transfer between European DIHs while enabling the sustainable development of new business opportunities for them all. DIHNET.EU will reinforce the smart specialisation by generating cross fertilization between technology oriented and sectorial DIHs.

DIHs and Specialisation

Collaboration among Competence Centres, Digital Innovation Hubs, regional and European Initiatives is crucial in order to offer the best possible support for SMEs and Midcaps.

How to ensure that the right services and support are delivered at the right level, at the right time and location? How are specialization and collaboration connected? 

The DIHNET.EU project will look into these questions in order to bring the topic of speacialisation to the attention of stakeholders and support the discussion on the topic.

By exploring both intra-regional collaboration among individual DIHs, CCs, and other stakeholders as well as trans-regional collaboration, the project will aim to boost collaboration and create a community and commitment among the different stakeholders.

Explore

DIH concept and evolution​

The concepts and practice of DIHs and networks of hubs have evolved from the Competence Centres, being the core mechanisms to support digitisation, to the creation of structures where different public and private stakeholders work together to support SMEs as a Digital Innovation Hub.

Also, Also, the introduction of the upcoming European Digital Innovation hubs and the emergence of (regional) DIHs networks working as a cross sectoral and multi-technology one-stop-shop for SMEs, supported at the same time at National and European level, show the need of moving towards a pan-European network of DIHs where DIHs offer the best possible support for SMEs and midcaps everywhere in Europe regardless of the technological domain and removing any constraints linked to regional capacities.

Within this framework, DIHNET.EU will facilitate the creation of a pan-European network of networks of DIHs to foster the cooperation offering tools to move from the traditional regional approach, to a network of DIHs acting as a doorway of European capacities to boost SMEs competitiveness.

Source TNO

During the project the opportunities for collaboration between DIHs in different types of national and international networks will be explored. Common tools to facilitate cross-border collaboration such as trainings, championship/benchmarking and learning scheme and communication tools to facilitate information exchange will be developed.

How to develop a DIH

The XS2I4MS (Access to I4MS) project, funded by the European Commission, run from September 2015 to February 2018. Led by TNO, in cooperation with Fraunhofer, VTT, the Manufacturing Technology Centre, and Brainport Development, the project developed a Mentoring Programme focused on six key non-technological issues on how to further develop Digital Innovation Hub (DIH) namely:

More information and materials (also from other projects) can be found in the DIHNET.eu Community section “DIHs Academy”.

Catalogue of DIHs​

The European Commission launched the Digitising European Industry initiative (DEI) in April 2016 to reinforce EU’s competitiveness by creating a strong network of DIHs to ensure that every company have access to digital innovations. 

The European catalogue of DIHs, is the DIHs repository that includes more than 680 existing hubs across Europe. It is an online catalogue which contains comprehensive information on DIHs in Europe. The ultimate purpose of the tool is to help companies get access to competences needed in order to digitize their products and services.

DIHNET.EU contributes to the upgrade and update the information included in the catalogue of DIHs created by the Joint Research Centre, developing a structured approach to facilitate data collection and their combination (synergies) by the current and future planned activities.

Repository

The DIHNET.EU project publications and materials are shared and archived in this website and the DIHNET Zenodo Community.

Explore the latest DIHNET publications:

DIH Champions Challenge

The DIHNET.EU project launched the novel DIHs Champions Challenge in 2019 with the objective to select the best performing DIHs in Europe. The Champions Challenge aims at identifying, showcasing and supporting success stories of mature Digital Innovation Hubs that can inspire and guide others.

“The EU-wide Champions Challenge is a benchmark for all DIH. The competition identifies the best-in-class hubs who can be a role model and incentive for others.”
Matthias Kuom
European Comission

News

In this section you will find all the latest news of the DIHNET.EU project.

Twitter Feed

Supportive partners

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Contact

Scientific Manager

Maurits Butter

E-mail

Phone

+31610939947

Address

Anna van Buerenplein 1
2595 DA Den Haag
The Netherlands

Project Manager

Ruud Baartmans

E-mail

Phone

+31646847439

Address

Anna van Buerenplein 1
2595 DA Den Haag
The Netherlands

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DIHNET has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Grant Agreement no 825640. The content of this website does not represent the opinion of the European Union, and the European Union is not responsible for any use that might be made of such content.

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