On 26 September 2023, more than 170 people attended the joint Final Event of the COSME-funded pilot-projects “STARS” and “ReStartSMEs”, titled “Advanced Technologies for Resilience and Competitiveness of European more Traditional SMEs. Lessons learnt and Recommendations for Policy Makers from the COSME-funded flagship projects ‘STARS’ and ‘ReStartSMEs’”.

The audience included representatives of EU institutions, cluster organisations, national and regional authorities, research institutions and SMEs.

The hybrid event was hosted at the Committee of the Regions (CoR) and patronised by Eugenio Giani, President of the Tuscany Region and Member of the CoR.

Watch the recording

During the event, the two projects STARS and ReStartSMEs shared the key lessons learnt and policy recommendations to further support competitiveness and innovation of the Industrial Ecosystems throughout Europe as well as territorial cohesion.

Highlights of the event

From the European Commission,

Mrs Mariella Masselink, Head of Unit “Industrial Forum, Alliances, Clusters” of the Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) presented the policy context.

Mr Igor Kalinic, Head of Sector “Competitiveness and Internationalisation” of the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA) presented the role of the Agency in supporting these initiatives.

From the projects,

Representatives presented the highlights and elaborated on lessons learnt and policy recommendations to European, national, and regional policy makers.

SMEs that participated in the projects also provided their testimonials.

From other COSME and Single Market Programme-supported initiatives, further insights were provided by

Ms Anke WIEGAND, Coordinator EEN Berlin-Brandenburg (Germany), EEN Supply Chain Resilience Platform (Belgium), and

Mr Antonio NOVO Antonio, President of European Cluster Alliance, member of the consortium coordinating the European Cluster Collaboration Platform (ECCP) Belgium.

During the event, a graphic artist translated in real-time the main concepts discussed into a graphical recording.