On 13th April 2018, the launch meeting for the aCCeSS project (a Crossborder Cooperation for Smart Specialisation) was held in Toulouse; the objective of this project is to promote the transfer of knowledge and technologies from universities to SMEs between border regions to improve their potential for innovation and form consortiums that will submit applications for European research projects.
aCCeSS is granted funding totalling 1.2 million euros, 65% co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Interreg V‐A Spain‐France‐Andorra cooperation programme (POCTEFA 2014‐2020).
The project, which will run for 36 months, is led by the University of Toulouse and the four Iberus Campus universities (Saragossa, Lleida, Navarre and La Rioja) are participating as partners, along with the universities of Pau and Perpignan. Representatives of all the partners attended the meeting and presented their participation in the project initiatives, activities and objectives.
The consortium has focused on 6 priority thematic areas of the regions involved: health services, food processing, intelligent cities, renewable energies, the aerospace industry and the manufacturing industry.
The objectives of the project include the establishment of a network of universities, chambers of commerce and industry and SMEs associations that will lead to the creation of a viewing platform for crossborder cooperation in Open Data in these 6 areas.
The identified R&D&I potential of the crossborder area will be communicated to SMEs in the region through specific thematic meetings. The public/private associations that arise from these meetings will be strongly supported by pursuing the development of new innovative projects that can be submitted to European calls for research projects.
The results of the project will be transferred to other socioeconomic actors in the area that have a presence in the economic sectors identified by the project.
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