AEI TÈXTILS, the Catalan Technical Textiles’ Cluster, and ATEVAL participated at the kick-off meeting to present the new European Cluster Strategic Partnerships for Excellence.  The meeting took place on February 18^th in Brussels and it was organized by the DG Growth from the European Commission and the Executive Agency for SMEs (EASME).

The event gathered representatives from the 13 newly funded projects that involve 69 European clusters from 21 countries, including the new project initiated by AEI Tèxtils: CLAMTEX - Cluster management towards excellence in Advanced Manufacturing and Textile Industry.

The CLAMTEX partnership integrates five clusters: AEI TÈXTILS in Catalonia, ATEVAL in Valencia, PRODUCTECH and the Textile Cluster both in Portugal, and EMC2 in France.

The project, co-funded under the COSME program from the European Union, aims to strengthen cluster management excellence to boost the specialized technical textile innovation eco-system by promoting the cross-sectoral and cross-regional collaboration to facilitate the uptake of digitalization within and beyond the partnership.

CLAMTEX will also implement the ClusterXchange pilot scheme to facilitate SME international experiences across Europe for generating business and innovation opportunities.

In the next 24 months, CLAMTEX members will take profit of the project to define the new cluster strategy along with its members, participate in capacity building activities, strengthen the management and opportunities generation for its members and organize several workshops and market studies for digitalizing the technical textiles’ sector.

Clusters act as a hub and as a collaborative environment to facilitate partnerships between enterprises, research institutes, policymakers and other institutions that promote innovation and provide SMEs access to new knowledge competencies, resources and markets.