AMULET, the EU-funded project supporting European SMEs, presents its final results

AMULET, the EU-funded project supporting European SMEs, presents its final results

AMULETS’s Final Event held on 16-17 October 2024, during the 13th International Trade Fair for Composite Materials KOMPOZYT-EXPO in Krakow, Poland, brought together over 100 participants including the AMULET consortium partners, most of the 15 funded collaborative projects, as well as representatives from European Commission, ELCA European Lightweight Cluster Alliance members and Fraunhofer IWU or A2LT - Austrian Advanced Lightweight Technology, to celebrate the results of the project and the three years of cluster collaboration that enabled 34 SMEs from 17 EU countries to obtain direct funding to develop innovative solutions.

We started on 16 October 2024 with the presentation “Overview of AMULET project and results” focused on AMULET’s achievements generated by the project.
Then we organised two enriching round table discussions:
"SMEs support through EU projects and EU cluster’s actions" moderated by Annabelle Sion, was focused on SME involvement and EU project support.
Among the participants were:

• Virginie Perron, Project Officer of the AMULET project, talked about the activities of the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA) under the I3 program. Who also highlighted the key role of clusters as drivers of innovation among SMEs. Clusters not only provide a supportive ecosystem, but also host innovative companies, form strategic alliances, and direct business support services.
• Katharina Schöps, representative of the ELCA European Lightweight Cluster Alliance, presented the role of clusters and cluster networks in supporting SMEs.
• Andrzej Czulak, Polish Cluster of Composite Technologies and the Ambassador of the AMULET project presented a local example of activities in this field.

"Advanced materials for lightweight in the future European industrial landscape" moderated by Ricardo del Valle Zermeño, PhD, Senior Innovation Manager at Bax.
The discussion was attended by Carsten Lies from Fraunhofer IWU and Martin Zottler from A2LT - Austrian Advanced Lightweight Technology, who talked about European national policies on advanced materials and the future of materials associations in the EU.

The session concluded with a presentation “Unlocking Potential: Advanced Lightweight Materials Challenges and Innovations in Key Industrial Sectors” by Indira Altynbekova, Advanced Materials Innovation Consultant at Bax, who highlighted the challenges of lightweight materials for the building, aerospace & aeronautics, energy, and automotive sectors.

Pitching Competition

On 17 October 2024, we organized a Pitching Session for winners of the 1st and 2nd AMULET open calls. Each Beneficiary had 10 minutes for a presentation and Q&A session. Representatives of the 15 winning consortia who came to the fair gave their presentations. They also had an opportunity to showcase their prototype or demonstrator at AMULET’s booth.

In addition to the budget already distributed through the three stages of the AMULET demonstration programme, the AMULET consortium decided to award an extra 16 800€ to the SMEs participating in stages 2 and 3 of the two open calls. These 16 800€ have been divided into 3 prizes: 8000€, 5400€ and 3400€.

To celebrate and promote the key role of SMEs, the AMULET project organised a contest in which the three best projects from the AMULET challenge competition were selected among the 15 funded projects.

At the stage of applying for the award, the consortia were asked to describe three elements:

• Follow-up of the solution developed in the AMULET programme
• Impact of the project on the companies of the consortium
• An Extra-information on the Award application.

The pitches were evaluated by experts from the ELCA network partners who participated in the AMULET final event in Krakow.
The culmination of our final event was the Award Ceremony for the best projects in the AMULET programme. The winners received the AMULET Awards and associated financial prizes.

Meet the winners:

• 1st prize - ChildSeat – Child seat headrest made from recycled thermoplastic straps

• 2nd prize - BioGear - Sustainable Composite Landing Gear

• 3rd prize - ZinAI - Zinc removal from Al-melt
  
  

Background Information

AMULET project, funded under the HORIZON 2020 INNOSUP programme, supported and co-financed projects that aim to exploit the innovation potential of small and medium-sized enterprises through a cross-sectoral and funded knowledge exchange. The project is a cross-regional partnership across ten EU countries that involves seven clusters, four RTOs and two SMEs.

The ultimate goal of AMULET was to significantly contribute to CO2 emissions reduction in the EU by boosting the role of SMEs.
The thematic challenge-based competitions of AMULET were organized through two Open Calls under a funnel approach, where SME consortia (2-3 SMEs) developed solutions to the industrial challenges coming from industrial end-users and suppliers.
At the beginning of this task, we were searching for challenges from the market. We collected 37 challenges from 32 challenge givers.

Overall, the AMULET project was not only about providing European SMEs with financial support to work on the prototyping, and demonstration of cutting-edge technological solutions but also helping them to further develop their solutions contributing to the reduction of CO2 emissions and improving resource efficiency in the EU by boosting the role of SMEs, in which their innovations are expected to be facilitated & supported by clusters.

AMULET provided educational support in technical-related knowledge (e.g., webinars) and business topics (e.g., B2B coaching), as well as an Ambassador Network offering business opportunities. The educational materials are collected in the repository on the ELCA platform here.

The educational programs and coaching activities in AMULET are supported by the ELCA platform, an online innovation platform that acts as a match-making environment, targeting exclusively clusters, companies, and research centres working on lightweight-related activities.