Summary of the European Alliance Against Coronavirus Daily Webinar on 24 September 2020

During the COVID-19 crisis, the health ecosystem has come under severe stress, experiencing an extraordinary situation. It is therefore one of the 14 ecosystems that needs a special focus for the recovery.

The European Commission is seeking the views of stakeholders on its plans for synergies and cross-fertilisation between the civil defence and space industries.

Defence, space and civil (including security) industries face unprecedented global competition, in a changing geo-political context. They also face new opportunities with the emergence of rapidly evolving technologies, and the emergence of new actors.

Clusters, cluster networks and SMEs are among the bodies being sought to join the Circlean European Network of businesses and SMEs for Industrial Symbiosis.

Technopolis Group, together with a consortium of partners composed of Trinomics, Industrial Synergies and Arctik, is implementing the CircLean Network on behalf of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW).

A European Commission survey on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has revealed that 62% of European Union (EU) SMEs confront barriers to digitalisation and 70% say they are facing at least one obstacle to becoming sustainable.

The survey, commissioned by the Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW), was conducted among more than 12,000 companies from all EU countries (plus more than 3,000 companies from 12 non-EU countries) between February and May this year.

Despite the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, industrial clusters across Europe have continued to show remarkable resilience and ability to help their members adapt.

In the face of this challenging situation, national borders should not hinder the potential of clusters and their members, SMEs in particular, to collaborate.