METABUILDING is a 3-year project that receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 873964. The overall objective of the METABUILDING project is to bring innovation to the “traditional” value chain of the Construction sector and at the same time systematically expand that value chain to other industrial actors and sectors to cre
ate an enlarged Built Environment industrial sector. The modernization of the Construction sector is especially important as the construction industry plays a very important role in the European economy. It generates 9% of the GDP of the European Union and provides 18 million jobs, of which 31% of industrial employment. But unfortunately, today the Construction sector has significant deficits in terms of innovation investment and productivity growth at all levels, but notably where SMEs are involved, which represent 99,9% of companies in the sector, producing up to 80% of its economic output. That is why the METABUILDING project aims at putting SMEs at the heart of a new innovation process to increase their productivity and competitiveness through collaboration with other more innovative, emerging sectors. Furthermore, it will contribute to a new structuring of the Construction sector to enhance collaboration between different EU countries and regions. METABUILDING will give innovation support to SMEs from 5 industrial sectors searching for synergies: Construction, Additive Manufacturing, Digital Industrial, Circularity & Recycling, and Nature Based Solutions and from 6 target countries:
Austria / France / Hungary / Italy / Portugal / Spain. The direct funding to SMEs (Financial support to Third Parties) takes the form of Innovation Vouchers (SEED calls) of a total amount of up to € 300’000.00 and grants for collaborative co-creation and insourcing projects (GROW and HARVEST calls) of up to € 2’400’00.00. Starting from a bottom-up approach taking into account the innovation needs and barriers of SMEs, a joint roadmap of an enlarged Built Environment value chain will be defined by stakeholders from all 5 sectors and coming from the 6 target countries. This joint roadmap will build the basis for the definition of the GROW and HARVEST innovation challenges that will allow to unleash synergies through the cross-sectoral, cross border collaboration of SMEs while increasing their competitiveness and internationalization. Furthermore, the project will create an Open Innovation Platform facilitating the identification of partners, innovative technologies (featuring an Industrial Commons-inspired database of previously developed, EU funded technology assets for insourcing), funding instruments, and new markets. In order to reach out to a maximum of SMEs, the project applies a meta-clustering strategy using the participating national platforms as multipliers to reach the regional clusters and industrial associations in the 6 target countries, helping them gaining critical mass and further structuring their approach to international markets. The project aims at achieving the following specific impacts:
100+ SMEs supported
80+ new products & processes
10 % reduction of water consumption
30 % reduction of greenhouse gas emissions
20 % reduction of energy consumption
15 % reduction of building materials waste
10 to 25 % increase in SME turnover
30 % average yearly medium-term productivity growth gain
Focus on METABUILDING consortium:
4 EU level Industrial Platforms
3 National Technology Platforms
2 National Construction Industry Associations
1 Large ICT Industrial
1 Business Network
