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Co-funded by the European Union
Combined brand Vlaio - FF ENGLISH

enHancing dIgital and Green growtH in the Food processing industry via Interregional innoVation invEstments

Project approach and results

 

The aim of the HIGHFIVE project is to support and facilitate the implementation of digital solutions in food processing SMEs. This through interregional innovation investments to accelerate the dual (digital and green) transition in Europe.

HIGHFIVE is supported by the Interregional Innovation Investments (I3) Instrument that aims at promoting innovation through Smart Specialisation and interregional collaboration.

More concretely, HIGHFIVE will

  1. deploy a portfolio of three industry driven implementation projects that will serve as demo-cases and provide valuable lessons learnt for both the cluster partners as for other SMEs,
  2. implement a voucher scheme to fund SME innovation investment projects in the regions involved,
  3. provide customized individual and collective support actions to enable SMEs to overcome the hurdles connected to implementing innovative digital technologies, and
  4. extract the results and lessons learnt throughout the project activities and to valorise them within the SS4AF network and transfer them to additional European stakeholders.

In this project a budget of 8.16 million euros goes to tangible (implementation projects and voucher projects) and 1.2 million as non-tangible company support.

Project partners

The HIGHFIVE consortium includes 39 regions from 9 European countries. Both more developed regions and transitional and developing regions will benefit from the project's actions and results. HIGHFIVE strengthens cooperation between these regions and will contribute to a stronger European agri-food value chain and to a more digital, sustainable and resilient agri-food sector in Europe.

All cluster partners are members of the S3 partnership Smart Sensors 4 Agrifood (SS4AF). The companies participating in that project are Pomuni (BE), Yazzoom (BE), Brouwerij De Brabandere (BE), Bakkerij Mariën (BE), Van Wees Waalwijk (NL), Food For Analystics (NL)  and RBK Automation (DE).

HIGHFIVE map partners