AdPack project is completing it’s first year

Submitted by Alexander Schwock on 08 December 2016

Press release, December 2016

AdPack project is completing it’s first year

AdPack’s Project first year is finishing and the partnership is very proud of the achievements of this twelve months of joint work.

The project began at the 1st of January of 2016, and in the second semester of the year, had it’s 1st Dissemination event held in December at the European Cluster Conference 2016, in Brussels. BalticNet-PlasmaTec and Plastiwin attended to this conference and AdPack was presented to more than 250 members of European Clusters and other stakeholders, through the participation in two parallel sessions: parallel session 3A: Advanced and digital manufacturing and parallel session 1B: Green manufacturing and the circular economy. Furthermore, both partners participated in the European Cluster Matchmaking Event and presented AdPack face-to-face to more than 25 matchmaking attendees.

Also, during this semester, the AdPack project was presented in 14 fairs, trade shows, conferences, workshops and study visits and participated in seven external cluster events in Europe and also in the USA. The most important fairs have been the Empack Fair (Belgium), the K-Messe (Germany) and the world's largest food innovation exhibition, the SIAL FAIR Paris (France) 2016. The European Cluster Conference 2016 (Belgium) and the Cluster Matchmaking Conference (Poland) have been the most important external cluster events.

One of the highlights of this period, was the 2nd Working Mission, where the consortium met in Malmö (Sweden) at the partner Packbridge. This Mission included a project meeting between the AdPack promotors, several B2B meetings, a visit to Packbridge and a training about the latest trends on the packaging industry. The consortium partners participated in one of the most important packaging conferences in Europe, the Top Packaging Summit which was organized by Packbridge. The consortium took part in the stimulating presentations from speakers representing the entire value chain of packaging in an event that tracked more than 200 participants from 20 different countries, 30 inspirational speakers and 35 exhibitors.

Also, AdPack was presented to the Region Skåne were they also met the clusters Media Evolution and Sustainable Business. The consortium partner also visited SmurfitKappa, one of the biggest producers of corrugated board packaging in the world. Meeting up there was also the Swedish company Beneli, producing advanced labels with the latest technique (i.e printed electronics, sensitive inks). Together they presented some very interesting new solutions in the packaging industry and it all ended up with a very interesting discussion about trends and challenges for the packaging industry and which applications could be used in the future.

The consortium visited European Spallation Source (a multi-disciplinary research facility based on the world’s most powerful neutron source) and MAX IV (Swedish electron accelerator laboratory for synchrotron radiation research) in Lund. This represents the latest in research possibilities with neutrons and synchrotron radiation. Research takes place in areas such as materials science, structural biology, chemistry and nanotechnology. The AdPack group was given a unique presentation of both research facilities ended with a round trip in the MAX IV building. There is a strong belief that this arena will be of strong benefit for the packaging material industry in the future, for example when it comes to new barrier materials or to understand why a certain packaging material behaves in a certain way and if there are possibilities for improvement.

During the past 6 months, one more partnership agreement was signed with the STAR Research & Innovation cluster from Czech Republic, and the AdPack project can now announce nine partnership agreements for the first year of the project.

The AdPack consortium is currently working on the Identification of good practices and services related to cross-border cooperation and internationalization and also on the Identification and assessment of international market needs, areas and opportunities for internationalization. Both tasks are very important to support the establishment of the European Strategic Cluster Partnership (ESCP) and international cross-cluster collaboration in the emerging industry of advanced smart packaging.

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Project AdPack - Future materials and products for advanced smart packaging, is promoted by 5 European clusters, and co-funded by the European Union through COSME Programme. The partners are Packbridge from Sweden, Plastiwin from Belgium, InovCluster from Portugal, BalticNet-PlasmaTec from Germany and Nanoprogress from Czech Republic.

Within the project AdPack a packaging-, food-, nano -, plasmatechnology- and plastic cluster together with affiliated entities focused in different interrelated sectors joined their competences to support the establishment of a partnership in the emerging industry of advanced packaging, which is considered by the European Cluster Observatory as an emerging industry that is interrelated with nearly every industry sector.

AdPack’s partnership is recognized by the European Clusters Collaboration Platform as an European Strategic Cluster Partnership (ESCP). This ESCP aims to have an impact on European employment, growth, competitiveness and innovation through the combination of different innovation areas for advanced smart and sustainable packaging, the intensification of cluster and business network cooperation across borders, the strengthening of the value chain; and the improvement of visibility of the consortium and affiliated entities SME on an international scale. Moreover, the consortium has accounted for the concept of smart specialisation, with several consortium partners focusing on sectors that are a priority in their respective regions/countries.

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