Description
The ECCP physical matchmaking event was held in the context of the Clusters meet Regions event “Boosting talent as a key driver for a future sustainable competitiveness” on 15th December 2022 in Barcelona.
Priority areas
Talent is one of the main pillars of the Catalonia Clusters programme and it translates into providing specific flagship programmes training and capacity building to cluster teams. Food, Energy and Mobility are also among Catalonia’s RIS3 priorities and together these industries directly involve more than half of Catalan clusters.
Food
The Agri-food industry is one the main engines of the Catalan economy with over 33Bn € of aggregate turnover. In addition to its relevant economic value, this sector has a strong impact on society and the environment. The sustainable transition in this domain includes challenges along the complex food value chain like the digitalization of agriculture, the way in which food is produced following circular economy criteria, or reducing the impact of food packaging and natural resource optimization.
In Catalonia, there are five clusters specifically related to food.
Energy
The energy ecosystem is at the centre of the transformation of the entire productive model worldwide and Catalonia is not an exception. The challenges generated by value-chain decarbonization and the transition towards an ideal neutral emission industry require the involvement of multiple actors and a clear bet for the clean-tech industry. This sector, which has an aggregate direct value of over 16 bn €, has multiple actors in Catalonia and three main clusters in the programme (Efficient Energy, Biomass and Water management).
Mobility
Mobility is the means for people to access what they need be it the workplace, markets, education, or social interaction and, as such, it has the potential to improve people’s everyday lives.
The Catalan mobility ecosystem is particularly comprehensive including more than 400 companies and a great variety of other related stakeholders and its aggregate turnover amounts to some 30bn € (including automotive, light mobility and railway industries) and three main clusters: the automotive, railway and light mobility clusters.
Who participated
The Matchmaking event brought together cluster organisations, business network organisations, companies, scaling-up support organisations, and investors from the EU (and non-EU COSME), countries of the European Economic Area (EEA) and countries of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) - with the exception of Belarus that is not eligible to participate.
Meetings´ scheduled were organised through B2Match. The matchmaking event was followed by the Clusters meet Regions workshop. More information could be found on the Clusters Meet Regions event page.
Technical Webinar
In preparation for this Matchmaking event, a technical webinar was organized on 7 December 2022, 9:30 – 10:30 CET to offer participants a contextual background and overview of how to approach the matchmaking session. Watch the recording:
The participants booklet is available for further information.
All pitching sessions slides are available here.