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DIHNET project
DIHNET stands for Boosting Widening Digital Innovation Hubs. DIHNET aims to build a digital innovation hub (DIH) network based on experience and practice sharing. A network that will support companies in turning their most innovative projects to life, aid investors in discovering the leaders of digital revolution and help development agencies understand the needs of industry.
Why?
Digitalisation is not evenly developed in all regions of Europe due to historic and economic conditions in different regions. So it is of utmost importance to ensure good practice uptake from more digitally developed regions to emerging markets to unlock their full potential. DIHs located in digitally mature regions will use their expertise and infrastructure to improve the capacity of DIHs from emerging regions. Thus strong collaborations and partnerships will be formed and access to new markets gained by all of the network partners.
How?
DIHNET project will explore best solutions for DIH cooperation in the form of technology transfer experiments. During these experiments we will connect established and developing DIHs with SMEs and mid-caps that require concrete digitalisation solutions. The business model at the core of DIH cooperation will set the base for the DIHNET network.
Background
The DIHNET project is aligned with the European Commission’s Smart Anything Everywhere (SAE) initiative. This initiative aims to support European companies through to advanced digitalisation solutions that should be available to any company regardless of its location.
Key elements of the SAE initiative are the digital innovation hubs (DIHs) – one-stop shops for companies seeking to improve their business or service with digital solutions. These hubs bring together companies that offer state-of-the-art solutions and take up the challenge of finding the answers to complex problems.
The experiments
Within the project, 2 sets of experiments will be carried out to test and refine the DIH cooperation business model. Pioneer phase will involve hubs from the project’s consortium, while the extended phase will involve newly attracted DIHs to validate the findings of the 1st phase. The validated and apporved DIH cooperation solution will be used as the basis for the DIHNET network.
During the experiments, the established and the developing hubs will closely cooperate to assist companies with testing and implementation of specific solutions. Within the scope of experiments DIHNET project will support 60 digitalisation experiments and distribute € 4,8 M in funding.
Experiment participants – SMEs and mid-caps and developing hubs that will support the extended phase – will be selected during open calls that will be published on DIHNET website.
2020 Q2-Q3
Open call for SMEs/mid-caps
from pre-defined regions of Latvia, Czech Republic, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Norway to apply for technology transfer experiments that will be led by DIHNET consortium partners
2021 Q1
Open call for developing DIHs
Developing DIHs invited to participate in the DIHNET activation programme to refine their service offering and work with SMEs/mid-caps during the 2nd batch of experiments
2022 Q1
Open call for SMEs/mid-caps
2nd call for companies to participate in technology transfer experiments with the hubs that participated in the DIHNET activation programme
DIHNET partners
