For the cluster, S3MartMed constitutes an opportunity to develop a partnership with 4 other European clusters of excellence – BioPmed (Italy), BioRegio STERN Management (Germany), Lyonbiopôle (France) and MedSilesia (Poland) – in order to identify in the medical technology sector:
- Future key investment priorities,
- Joint activities for the emergence of interregional collaborations (commercial and innovation activities).
The project started in October 2018. BioWin is the leader of the first Work Package. The purpose of this is to define the strategy for setting up the partnership in order to define concrete actions
Three webinars on themes identified as priorities by SMEs were organized. DNAlytics, a BioWin member, gave a presentation of its activities and services during the third webinar (Title: Artificial intelligence in medical technology).
In September 2019, a partnering event was held in Germany, at the University Hospital of Tübingen. This workshop, spread over two days, was an opportunity for SMEs developing medical technologies to meet clinicians directly and to participate in a workshop on 3D printing and artificial intelligence on the second day. In particular, it was an opportunity to meet other European manufacturers and suppliers of medical technologies during B2B meetings.
In June 2020, a virtual brokerage event to connect RTOs and SMEs active in MedTech took place. The UMons Automation Department presented some projects.
From all these activities and thanks to the connections made by the 5 partner clusters, potential projects between the ecosystems of the 5 regions could emerge.
With these two years of collaboration and teaching, the partnership was able to establish a long-term strategy at different levels:
- Proposal of a post-project cooperation agenda between the 5 partner clusters
- Definition of a post-project communication strategy
- Creation of a compendium of skills including SMEs and research centers that participated in the project
- Lessons learned on inter-regional and collaborative collaboration activities
- Recommendations for setting up and financing inter-regional projects.
The project closed on November 30, 2020.