It should help speed up the deployment of proven photonics technologies within European industry in order to increase its global competitiveness, with an emphasis on technological sovereignty and resilience while also fostering strong new enterprise business growth. Care will be taken that it will not compete with existing commercial offers.

Proposals should address the following:

A streamlined virtual access, supported through a network of competence centers acting as a single consortium, to a supply chain which offers a broad range of photonics technologies that cover the entire photonics innovation spectrum from concept to commercialization (TRL2-7).

The action should create pathways from initial concept through to production, employing scalable manufacturing methods connected to pilot lines and pre-series production facilities appropriate to the market, and thereby closing the gaps in photonics value chains and unlocking investments in European manufacturing based on more complete and mature solutions.

The action needs to target primarily first users and early adopters enabling the wider uptake and deployment of core photonic technologies in innovative products and processes with strong commercial potential.

Support cases should be innovative and industrially relevant, requiring intensive cross-border collaborative expert intervention to overcome specific innovation challenges based on synergetic photonics core technologies, and should include business-related coaching activities directly linked to the innovation activities to support industrialization steps to full commercial launch as a complete value chain appropriate to the market needs.

The action should build on relevant previous European initiatives and existing infrastructure at European and regional levels, use an appropriate quality management and impact measurement framework for the direct innovation support interventions, demonstrate a record of accomplishment in supporting industry, in particular SMEs and start-ups, with deep cross-border innovation support.
The action should address innovation-readiness support in the form of Demonstration Centers and Experience Centers.

This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership Photonics.