What We Do
SMEs and Intermediary Organisations
The Vanguard Initiative offers a platform for businesses, clusters and knowledge institutes to meet and join forces in finding new innovative solutions.
Together, we aim to increase the competitiveness of companies and scale-up regional businesses in Europe-wide value-chains.
The Vanguard Initiative’s Pilot Projects offer unique possibilities for businesses, clusters, and knowledge centres to connect with like-minded partners across European regions that share a joint goal; to strengthen industrial innovation in Europe. The benefits of interregional partnerships, established through the Pilot Projects, include exploiting complementarities, project development at the demonstration and piloting stage towards upgrading and business exploitation (beyond TRL 5), opening and sharing specialised infrastructure, access to a larger community of end-users, pooling good practices as well as jointly addressing non-technological issues, etc.
The participating stakeholders in the Pilot Projects get access to exclusive networks of pilot plants, demo-sites, and partners, working together to accelerate the market uptake of advanced technologies and methodologies in areas of strategic importance to Europe’s industry.
SME success stories
In these unprecedented times, SMEs across Europe are facing profound transformation processes in which the technological challenges are becoming ever greater and, at the same time, the need of embracing the twin (digital and green) transition needs to be tackled quickly and decisively. Therefore, a strong positioning on the national and international market is a crucial success factor for small and medium-sized enterprises. External support through cooperations can be an important factor, but these are rarely free or without strings attached.
The Vanguard Initiative and its initiated SME Success Stories support program precisely tackles these challenges. Three Enterprises (AddCat B.V., Remembrane Srl. and Bond High-Performance 3D Technology) have been selected and supported by building cross-regional innovation practices. The program aimed to promote the participation of these companies in the activities of the Vanguard Initiative in order to foster interregional value chains and accelerate market adoption of their products and services.
The selected companies not only benefited from the strong network and experience of the Vanguard Initiative experts, but were also able to stimulate and expand interregional partnerships and collaborations in the Vanguard regions through an innovation voucher.
Read more about our voucher winners in our dedicated news features.
Bioeconomy Pilot - Plenary meeting
The Bioeconomy Pilot will hold its plenary meeting on Thursday 30 September
VI at the European Week of Region and Cities
Vanguard Initiative, jointly with the VI Regions East Netherlands, Asturias, Baden Württemberg, East and North Finland, Emilia Romagna, Scotland, Slovenia, and South Neth
Progress update from the bioeconomy pilot
The Bioeconomy Pilot inaugurates the "Green Transition Hub" demo project for the creation of inter-regional supply chains
Supporting Pilot Project participants to collaborate
Pilots and their participants work every day to develop collaboration projects to further strengthen the value chain of their choice.
BASQUE ENERGY CLUSTER PRESENTS THE DOCC-OFF PROJECT AS PART OF A WEBINAR ON DIGITALISATION OF RENEWABLE MARINE ENERGIES IN
The Atlantic Maritime Strategy was adopted in 2011 to support the sustainable development of the blue economy in the EU Member States borderi
Progress update from the 3DP pilot
Many projects’ generations, B2B connections and expertise/experience sharing during the latest 3DP Pilot Plenary Meeting! On the 6th and 7th of July 2021, the 3
Pilot annual report 2020: ESM
In 2020, the activities of the pilot will be managed in continuity with the previous years, focusing on the development of demo-case projects and on the consolidation of use-cases enlarging the ind
Pilot Action plan 2021: ESM
In 2021, ESM activities will be managed in continuity with the previous years, focusing specifically on the development of demo-case projects and on the consolidation of use-cases enlarging the ind
Pilot Action plan 2021: Bioeconomy
The 2021 Annual Plan is the primary reference that guides the Bioeconomy Pilot activities, by providing primary direction supporting the strengthening partnerships and defining a feasible financial
Pilot Action plan 2020: ESM
This Annual plan is the main reference that will guide the ESM Pilot activities during 2020.
ADMA Energy Flyer
The flyer on the Vanguard Initiative pilot project in Advanced Manufacturing for Energy Related Applications (
Circular Economy Hotspot Catalonia 2021
Catalonia region would like to invite you to explore business opportunities and best practices, during the upcoming Circular Economy Hotspot Catalon
RIS3 Investment Forum
Join RIS3 Investment Forum to connect, learn and discover regional deployment of innovation and entrepreneurship actions and see how innovation ecosystem champions can play a greater role in the d
VPM Meeting
To participate in the Vanguard Pilot Monitoring Task Group meeting, please contact Task Group leader Wim De Kinderen w.dekinderen@brainportdevelopment.nl.
ISLANDS AND RURAL COMMUNITIES - Transitioning to Net Zero
As part of EU Sustainable Energy Week 2021, Scotland House Brussels is delighted to invite you to the last in
EWRC - East Netherlands' Workshop: 'Regions shaping Europe’s digital future'
Th!nk East Netherlands is organising the workshop Regions shaping Europe’s digital future as part of the European Week of Regions and Cities 2021 on 12 October from 16.30-18.00.
EWRC: Connecting Regional Innovation Ecosystems: Interregional Value Chains to spur the Digital transition
Vanguard Initiative, jointly with the VI Regions East Netherlands, Asturias, Baden Württemberg, East and North Finland, Emilia Romagna, Scotland, Slovenia, and South Neth