PhotonHub Europe – a new pan-European photonics digital innovation hub –has been awarded €19 million investment from the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme. PhotonHub Europe will help European SMEs become highly competitive digital businesses through faster and smarter deployment of photonics-based technologies, directly creating over 1000 new high-tech EU jobs and nearly €1 billion in new revenues and venture capital by 2025.
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In order to accelerate the uptake and deployment of photonics technologies by European industry, PhotonHub will establish a single photonics innovation hub which integrates all of the best-in-class photonics technologies, facilities, expertise and experience of 53 top competence centres across Europe under one roof as a one-stop-shop solution with open access for any company anywhere in Europe that wants to innovate with photonics. As a result, PhotonHub will provide European companies, in particular “non-photonics” SMEs and mid-caps that are first users and early adopters of photonics, with open access and guided orienteering through the PhotonHub front office in Brussels, across a broad range of services and capabilities covering:
- Training and Upskilling support
- “Test before Invest” innovation support
- Support to find investment
Photonics Training and Upskilling Supports
Training and upskilling support to companies will cover both technology- and application-specific learning in photonics using lecture-based tutorials, hands-on lab-based training and “Train-the-Trainer” programmes within the hub’s 40 Demo Centres and 10 Experience Centres throughout Europe, all coordinated for consistent standards of excellence under the umbrella of the European Photonics Innovation Academy of PhotonHub.
Commenting on the training supports, Prof. Peter O’Brien of the Tyndall National Institute at University College Cork in Ireland and leader of the training activities within PhotonHub Europe, said “Investing in workforce training is key to boosting innovation, especially helping “non-photonics” people become more skilled and knowledgeable in how to best exploit photonics technologies in their new products and applications. PhotonHub, through its European Photonics Innovation Academy, will not only open up the world-class facilities of our consortium partners for hands-on demos and training, but our training supports will be enhanced through online tools to include the extensive use of virtual training sessions and a digital catalogue of further photonics training opportunities from across the wider European academic and industrial ecosystem”.
Cross-Border Added Value and Pan-European Networking
PhotonHub will uniquely support cross-border innovation activities of European companies, whilst simultaneously working closely with local photonics hubs representing 18 European regions as additional partners in the consortium to further boost photonics innovation amongst SMEs at a localised level all over Europe.
Commenting on the regional collaboration with PhotonHub Europe, Mr. Ziga Valic of Photonics France said, “Photonics is recognised across many European regions as a key digital technology which is central to industrial innovation and prosperity. As such, we are investing strongly at a regional level in developing a vibrant local ecosystem for photonics innovation which integrates all stakeholders from research institutes and innovation labs to SMEs and large enterprises. Linking our regional efforts to PhotonHub at the European level we believe is essential as it means we can offer local companies a fast and seamless route to the best expertise and technologies in photonics to match their needs, whether that is to be found locally, nationally or on a cross-border level”.
Furthermore, through its close collaboration and alignment with the European Technology Platform for Public-Private Partnership between the EC, academia and industry – Photonics21 – on the strategy for photonics development in Europe, and by tightly linking the activities of PhotonHub with those of other European Digital Innovation Hubs through its digital community-building platform, PhotonHub will ensure fast user-friendly access for European SMEs to the broadest possible range of advanced photonics expertise and technologies on the European scale, covering the entire value chain from TRL3-8.
“Most critically, in these times of high uncertainty and disruption in global supply chains, photonics has become an even more important key enabling technology for the transformation of production methods in European manufacturing for increased competitiveness of local supply chains and the boosting of Europe’s technological sovereignty,” said Prof. Hugo Thienpont of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and overall coordinator of PhotonHub. “By combining local proximity with cross-border added value, PhotonHub will be a critical accelerator for innovation, digital transformation and SME business growth in Europe and an essential source for powerful networking opportunities across a pan-European innovation ecosystem”.
PhotonHub Europe will commence operations from early 2021 and will be operating a continuous open call for companies to apply for its support services. Applications for support will be facilitated online through the PhotonHub website.