MATMED
The North-West Europe (NWE) region has monothematic clusters focused on advanced materials, regenerative medicine or medical devices, which are recognised in RIS3 Strategies as part of Smart Specialisation. However, many advanced materials innovations with medical market potential (e.g. via 3D printing, nanotech coatings & biodegradable polymers) occurring at the crossroads of these disciplines fail to get adopted or are slow to enter the market and thus cannot offer solutions for the aging NWE population.
Timeline: 01/01/2019 - 31/12/2021
Contact: Samaneh Ghazanfari
Go to: Website
Research
Barriers to the take up of these specific type of crossover innovations include:
- SMEs and other stakeholders are poorly networked between themes and regions
- Incomplete availability/awareness of testing/characterisation infrastructure for scale up within and across regions
- Long investment-to-financial-return cycles and difficulty to raise risk capital
- Changing regulatory framework for Medical Devices in EU with strong requirements on health safety testing and materials characterisation
As a result, SMEs active in these sectors are less competitive than they otherwise could be.
MATMED addresses these issues across 8 NUTS2 regions: Greater Manchester (UK), Gelderland, Overijssel, Limburg (NL), Münster, Köln (DE), East Flanders & Flemish Brabant (BE).
MATMED will run a web-based open innovation and learning platform between regions to connect SMEs with researchers, specialised private investors and each other beyond their own regional networks. A multi-stage voucher scheme will facilitate at least 40+ transnational collaborations, 20+ products reaching technology validation (TRL 4-5) and 10+ reaching technology demonstration phase (TRL 6-7), attracting at least €5M of additional funding from private investors to help innovative solutions reach the market. The sustainability of the matchmaking & pilot testing facilities and the brokerage network is ensured by sustained local support combined with member contributions.