AEI Tèxtils, the Catalan advanced textile materials’ cluster, has participated in several meetings this month to discuss and plan different activities and services for supporting its members in improving their competitiveness and resilience, by going international and strengthening its service portfolio for promoting innovation.

Over the past weeks, AEI Tèxtils participated in several project meetings across Europe including the follow-up meeting of GALACTICA in Seville hosted by CTA to plan for the coaching support to the funded projects under the second call, where 5 members of the cluster are beneficiaries.

The team also had a consortium meeting of the recently started project, Hi-Tech-TEX, in Prato (Italy) hosted by NTT, which will provide continuity to CLAMTEX in strengthening the cluster service portfolio, test new services and provide financial support for short exchanges of SMEs across Europe for market research and development of partnerships.

Also in Prato, the cluster meet with TEXGLOBAL partnership to review the outcomes from the mission to Mexico organized by the cluster late in March and plan for the next international business missions to Vietnam (virtually) on September and Atlanta (USA) in May 2023. These missions will complement the other ones foreseen by the cluster to California in February 2023, Japan in July 2023 and Canada October 2023.

Moreover, the cluster also met in Jordan with the Jordan and Moroccan partners of FOSTEX for its final conference and plan future collaboration activities that can synergize opportunities for Catalan SMEs interested in opportunities in those countries.

Lastly, the cluster also attended the final event of the Smart Textile Masterclass organized by the Textile ETP in Milan on May 31^st and June 1^st to network with different organizations developing solutions in smart textiles. The cluster and its members have strong interest in these solutions to develop innovative high added value products. Over the past couple of years, several prototypes have been developed by its members thanks to around 1M€ in funding raised in support by the cluster.

Projects are tools for the cluster to support strategically its members with services and pilot actions such as organization of business missions, facilitating networking and matchmaking services for its members with international partners

Strengthening the cluster services is a key priority for the cluster in order to better support its members in innovation, particularly with the uptake of sustainability and digitalization into textile manufacturing.

Internationalization is key area of the cluster revised strategy addressing two major objectives: increasing the competitiveness of its members with facilitated access to third country markets and increasing visibility of its members at international level thanks to the cluster participation in key events, both in Europe and internationally. In that sense, AEI Tèxtils has promoted a joint booth in Techtexil 2022 in Frankfurt that will take place during June 21^st to 24^th. There, the cluster will showcase the different ongoing innovations of its members and increase the positioning of the Catalan Advanced Textile Materials’ sector.

The different projects aim to support SMEs in identifying and exploiting growth opportunities worldwide through activities such as partnering missions, matchmaking events, cross-partnership webinars, circular economy business models, digitalization driver and cross-cultural approach, and lessons in building industrial resilience.

Clusters, like AEI Tèxtils, are great connectors and facilitators for the industrial ecosystem to promote, facilitate, and support the innovation process of its members, fostering the green transition and digital transformation, as a key contribution to the increase the competitiveness of the advanced textile materials sector and its members.