The CAFEIN (Cluster Action For Ecosystem Innovation Network) project, an EU-funded initiative ending in August 2024, coordinated by AFPC, involved five national cluster agencies, including 3 EUCLES founding members:
- AFPC – Association Française des Pôles de Compétitivité
- PCA – Związek Pracodawców Klastry Polskie
- FENAEIC – Spanish Cluster Agency
- CONFEMI – Confindustria Emilia Area Centro
- Clusters of Sweden
The main objective of CAFEIN is to connect innovation ecosystems to accelerate the green and digital transition through the creation of a Joint long-term Action Plan (JAP), designed to establish the framework for sustainable cross-border collaboration and innovation support measures with a particular focus on facilitating green transitions for SMEs, and enhancing connections across interconnected European innovation ecosystems in alignment, with the goal of making Europe climate neutral by 2050. It also highlights and strengthens cooperation and funding opportunities at the national and regional level to create more complementarities for sustainable interregional and international cooperation.
CAFEIN’s efforts have also been strongly supported by the national innovation agencies of five countries, which form the Innovation Funding Advisory Board (IFAB):
- Bpifrance in France,
- Invitalia in Italy,
- Tillväxtverket/Vinnova in Sweden,
- the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism,
- and PARP – Centrum Rozwoju Małych i Średnich Przedsiębiorstw – in Poland.
EUCLES is proud to announce that CAFEIN’s Joint Action Plan has been validated during the last IFAB meeting in Bologna – Italy, on 27 June 2024, hosted by Confindustria Emilia. And AFPC was one of the first partners to sign the JAP Agreement. All CAFEIN partners and IFAB members agreed to sign this JAP Agreement for Green Transition. It will now be extended to the dozens of additional clusters and national agencies who declared interest in joining the movement. It is worth mentioning that ECCP – the European Cluster Collaboration Platform who attended this last IFAB meeting – and TAFTIE – the European Network of Innovation Agencies – also declared an interest in joining the CAFEIN’s initiative.
Stay tuned for latest updates! https://cafein-project.eu/newsrooms/
To know more about the CAFEIN project and its objectives in video, see here 👇
