FlexFunction2Sustain

“Open Inno­va­tion Ecosys­tem for Sus­tain­able Nano-​functionalized Flex­i­ble Plas­tic and Paper Sur­faces and Membranes” FlexFunction2Sustain will be the first Euro­pean Ini­tia­tive to sup­port Plas­tics and Paper Pro­cess­ing Indus­try in over­com­ing chal­lenges of improv­ing envi­ron­men­tal foot­print and enter­ing the dig­i­tal age while offer­ing new mate­r­ial func­tion­al­i­ties through a sus­tain­able Open Inno­va­tion Ecosys­tem. FlexFunction2Sustain will upgrade mate­ri­als facil­i­ties and develop and inte­grate ser­vices to boost inno­va­tion for nano-​functionalised flex­i­ble plas­tic and paper sur­faces and mem­branes and make those facil­i­ties and ser­vices avail­able to users, in par­tic­u­lar SMEs in all 28 EU coun­tries through an inde­pen­dent Single-​Entry Point (SEP) legal entity with mul­ti­ple regional front offices. FlexFunction2Sustain will cre­ate a sus­tain­able Open Inno­va­tion Ecosys­tem by achiev­ing these spe­cific objectives:

1. Set-​up the FlexFunction2Sustain OITB and asso­ci­ated SEP to make avail­able con­nected pub­lic and pri­vate owned facil­i­ties and asso­ci­ated ser­vices related to nano-​functionalized plas­tic and paper sur­faces and mem­branes to clients in all 28 EU Countries.
2. Upgrade the (exist­ing) “lab-​to-​fab” (TRL4 TRL7) facil­i­ties and con­nect them to a unique OITB to increase pro­duc­tiv­ity, reli­a­bil­ity, and process para­me­ters by 20 – 50% for the devel­op­ment, upscal­ing and pilot pro­duc­tion of nano-​functionalized plas­tic and paper sur­faces and membranes.
3. Develop a holis­tic approach towards sus­tain­able prod­ucts tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion the Cir­cu­lar Econ­omy prin­ci­ples, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, test­ing and ver­i­fi­ca­tion, as well as stan­dards and reg­u­la­tion aspects.
4. Val­i­date and demon­strate the per­for­mance of novel nano-​functionalized plas­tic, paper and mem­brane sur­faces and processes in 4 rel­e­vant indus­trial envi­ron­ments through 6 indus­trial use cases:
   • (1−3) Sus­tain­able pack­ag­ing offer­ing good gas bar­rier prop­er­ties: (1) paper based, (2) fully recy­clable, (3) marine degradable;
   • (4) bio-​degradable opti­cal films for secu­rity labels;
   • (5) bio-​functional per­me­abil­ity mem­brane for water fil­ters in a clinic environment;
   • (6) scratch resis­tance sur­faces with inte­grated printed elec­tron­ics in automotive.
5. Cre­ate a strong, holis­tic ser­vice port­fo­lio along the inno­va­tion chain at fair and rea­son­able con­di­tions based on:
   • tech­ni­cal ser­vices (mate­r­ial and process design and mod­el­ling, devel­op­ment, upscal­ing, pilot pro­duc­tion, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion, testing/​ver­i­fi­ca­tion, assess­ment of com­pli­ance with Cir­cu­lar Econ­omy prin­ci­ples and with stan­dards and reg­u­la­tions (in par­tic­u­lar with regard to health and safety)
   • busi­ness ser­vices (access to net­works, investors, research and inno­va­tion funds, mar­kets, value chains, and clients; ser­vices on busi­ness train­ing coach­ing; due dili­gence ver­i­fi­ca­tion; IP land­scap­ing, screen­ing and rat­ing; inno­va­tion poten­tial assess­ment of mate­ri­als and prod­ucts, sup­port in standardization).
6. Demon­strate FlexFunction2Sustain Ser­vices in at least 20 pre-​commercial busi­ness cases (Pilot Cases) and attract at least 30 SME pilot clients from at least 10 dif­fer­ent EU coun­tries as early adopters until the end of the funded project period. Estab­lish and exe­cute a sus­tain­able busi­ness plan that enables the OITB to gen­er­ate an annual turnover of more than 20 Mio Euro per year within the first 5 years after end of the funded period.

BL NanoBio­med will be ver­i­fied and imple­mented the bel­low process for nanoparticle-​based coat­ings. Thus, will be able to Launch new Bio­elec­tron­ics pilot prod­ucts appli­ca­tions, Patents, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Investors /​VCs/​Cus­tomers, Com­mer­cial­iza­tion B2B, pre-​contracting agreements.