CLINES project succesfully completed

The CLINES project – Cluster-based Innovation through Embedded Systems technology – was recently finished. On this page, you can find some of the resources presenting the results of the project, of which CISS was partner.

Executive summary of final project report

The Europe 2020 strategy clearly signals the importance of industrial competitiveness for growth and jobs as well as for Europe’s ability to address grand societal challenges in the coming years. Mastering and deploying Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) in the European Union is central to strengthening Europe’s capacity for industrial innovation and the development of new products and
services needed to deliver smart, sustainable and inclusive European growth.

Among the societal challenges are the demands for sustainability and energy saving, the growing age of populations, reduced public budgets and the expectations from citizens on improved services and living conditions.

In the context of these challenges, the notion of smart cities constitutes a possible solution. A joint triple helix emphasis on development and application of smart-city solutions and systems will stimulate growth and innovation and also solve a number of challenges for citizens, cities and regions.

In order to support this emphasis, the CLINES project has defined a triple helix strategy through a Joint Action Plan (JAP) for the area of smart cities. The plan takes as its starting point the specific competences and trends of research and technological development within embedded systems for smart cities (ESSC) and its applications of the four involved regions and cluster organisations.

The plan is formulated through 14 recommendations supporting the objectives of

• unlocking new finance sources in a synergic manner
• boosting innovative eco-design approaches
• bringing SMEs to play the role as innovation actors at an international level and boosting their international competitiveness
• contributing to the development of adequate smart specialization strategies for the involved regions based on the Joint Action Plans
• dissemination in order to promote awareness of innovation potentials through focused events and
  showrooms.

The plan has been validated internally by CLINES through an adapted evaluation framework, and also formulated in a special version targeted for political decision makers on smart specialisation. Furthermore, special efforts have been made on the development and validation of an open innovation methodology through a series of innovation workshops. Finally, an internationalisation strategy has been formulated based on the idea of establishing beachhead partnerships with additional, complementary clusters.