Due to population lifestyle changes, i.e. obesity, diabetes and aging population, chronic wounds (CW) which fail to follow the typical healing process is a major medical socioeconomic challenge. Current wound management is clearly insufficient and advanced therapies failed in keeping their promise of reliable skin regeneration. The aim of FORCE REPAIR is to develop a smart and multifunctional wound dressing providing pro-regenerative environment and mechanical stability to treat CW. Thus, FORCE REPAIR will combine state-of-the-art technologies in a biological scaffold tailored to patient’s needs: (1) Antibacterial and bioadhesive bioink with antibiotics and anti-inflammatory loaded nanocapsules, (2) Elastin like polypeptides promoting innervation and vascularization (3) Wharton Gel Complex preventing oxidative stress and boosting key extracellular matrix proteins. Also, the dressing activated by UV light will induce contractile force to help wound closure and activate skin regeneration. A customized 3D bioprinter with a user-friendly 3D trajectory software will help to strategically placed the biological compounds to timely address and mitigate the degenerative process occurring in CW, i.e. infection, inflammation, tension forces to promote skin regeneration. The 3D printed dressing will be tested in relevant in vitro model with a human exudate library and testing relevant key healing steps (i.e. re-epithelization, angiogenesis, cell proliferation…). Selected candidates will be tested in vivo on pig CW models and mice with bacterial infection. To ensure translation to clinical practice and reach patients, regulatory framework, HTA and a business model will be defined for a viable exploitation strategy that will decrease economic burden of wound care management and improve patients’ QoL. Finally, to ensure market acceptance health professional will guide the development of FORCE REPAIR to offer a dressing that treat efficiently CW and can be used by medical staff.

The 2014/15 calls for proposals for pilot action projects resulted in 24 projects with total funding of 115 M€, and another 80 M€ are being invested under the 2016/17 work-programme. These pilot facilities respond rapidly and with simple contracting mechanisms to industry needs which is essential for SMEs and start-ups. Pilot facilities can potentially help create new business, jobs and growth across Europe. This potential can only be fully exploited if the actions started by the European Commission under H2020 are followed-up by complementary initiatives at national/regional level, to promote coordination mechanisms among these pilot facilities. One of the recommendations developed by a task-force composed by a group external experts (mandated by the European Commission) are the implementation of regional innovation hubs that should coordinate efforts, share good practices, facilitate access and promote business development of existing pilot lines across regions and member states. The overall project goal of the coordinated and support action proposal is to boost the European competitiveness through the exploitation of the existing European pilot line production facilities (across Europe) in the area of nanotechnology and advanced material technologies by creating a network of fully connected and collaborating pilot lines and boost the effectiveness and the efficiency of existing (and future) pilot line facilities and by creating a digital ecosystem acting as an interactive marketplace for professional members. The action will ensure the delivery of a series of horizontal coordination and support action services to the (European level) network of pilot line facilities and will set the scene for the establishment of innovation hubs across the Member States and/or regions.

RESERVIST aims to establish ‘reservist cells’ that in times of crises can be activated within 48hrs to switch to manufacturing medical products and services that are spiking in demand. Such a ‘reservist cell’ will consist of (i) a backbone network of core companies for manufacturing and testing; (ii) an extended network for further capacities (eg local provision, packaging, distribution, customization,…); (iii) a digital coordination platform and (iv) a pool of experts from the companies of the network. These cells will become operational in case of an emergency/pandemic but to make economic sense, the same approach of rapid flexibility and adaptability will be used to deal with surging demand in ‘normal circumstances’. To realise this concept, we will first work on three levels individually: network level, connected manufacturing/digital manufacturing level and technical level, the latter referring to tweaking manufacturing lines, developing required materials and establishing links with testing/certification. Next, we will demonstrate the repurposing of 5 existing manufacturing lines within 48hrs towards manufacturing of ‘textile PPE’ (surgical and respiratory face masks, medical aprons) and ‘respiratory ventilators’ (invasive and non invasive) that comply with necessary testing and certification and proceed with the embedment of the reservist cells at the partners in the network. We will develop blueprints for further take-up and replication of the concept to other sectors. Within the project we will develop two replication demos: ‘disinfection equipment’ and ‘emergency medical equipement’. To support the Cells we will tap into the worldwide maker community and into relevant OITBs and networks. The consortium is strongly industry-driven, including 4 LE and 7 SMEs coming from 7 EU countries. To maximise impact, we will extend our partner network and our Impact Support Group (18 Support Letters provided at proposal stage).

The SILENSE project will focus on using smart acoustic technologies and ultrasound in particular for Human Machine- and Machine to Machine Interfaces. Acoustic technologies have the main advantage of a much simpler, smaller, cheaper and easier to integrate transducer. The ambition of this project is to develop and improve acoustic technologies beyond state-of-the-art and extend its application beyond the mobile domain to Smart Home & Buildings and Automotive domains. In this project, it will be proven that acoustics can be used as a touchless activation and control mechanism, by improvement or development of different smart acoustic technology blocks (hardware, software and system level) and integrate these blocks at system level. At technology level, the SILENSE project will: - Adapt and improve cost, performance, directivity and power consumption of (MEMS) acoustic transducers (incl. testing and qualification) - Heterogeneously integrate arrays of acoustic transducers with other electronics, using advanced (3D) packaging concepts - Develop smart algorithms for acoustical sensing, localization and communication - Combine voice and gesture control by means of the same transducer(s) At application level the SILENSE project will: - Apply acoustical sensing for touchless activation/control of mobile devices, wearables and, more in general, IoT nodes. The project links to Smart Systems Integration (B4), and refers also to application application-related topics, such as Smart Mobility and Smart Society. The application scope of the developed technologies is broader and comprises more societal domains, such as smart home/buildings, smart factories (i.e. Smart Production) and even Smart Health. Furthermore, a clear cross reference with Semiconductor Process, Equipment and Materials (B1) is established in view of the heterogeneous integration of technology blocks. Conventional silicon technologies will be combined with printed (flexible, large area electronics).

SUPREME aims at optimizing powder metallurgy processes throughout the supply chain. It will focus on a combination of fast-growing industrial production routes and advanced ferrous and non-ferrous metals. By offering more integrated, flexible and sustainable processes for powders manufacturing and metallic parts fabrication, SUPREME enables the reduction of the raw material resources (minerals, metal powder, gas and water) losses while improving energy efficiency, production rate and CO2 emissions, into sustainable processes and towards a circular economy. To achieve this goal, an ambitious cross-sectorial integration and optimization has been designed between several powder metallurgy processes: gas and water atomization as well as ball milling for metal powder production, additive manufacturing and near-net shape technologies for end-parts fabrication. Quality and process control will be developed to monitor KPI, based on eco-innovation approach, to demonstrate the optimization of material and energy use. 4 demonstrators will be proposed at each step of the value chain in real industrial setting and ready for business exploitation at TRL 7: mineral concentration, metal powder manufacturing, metal part manufacturing and end-product that will validate a global optimization of more than 25% on material yield losses, more than 10% on energy efficiency, more than 10% on production rate and beyond 30% of CO2 emissions. SUPREME has gathered an outstanding consortium of 17 partners from 8 countries, represented by 11 companies including 6 SMEs that will ensure a successful implementation towards market applications. 5 applications sectors are targeted: automotive, aeronautics, cutting tools, molding tools and medical. The process key differentiation advantages will bring modularity, flexibility and sustainability to powder metallurgy and will reduce the total cost breakdown of these technologies, boosting their adoption by industry.