The HPhos cluster provides an integrated support mechanism to its members aiming to the increase of their competitiveness and their growth. Among others, HPhos offers:

• Lobbying at national and international level for the promotion of the Photonics field
• Provides networking and identifies collaboration opportunities in Greece and abroad
• Promotion of its members at national and international level under the cluster branding, in international exhibitions, trade shows and business events, outgoing and incoming business missions
• Support at its members in identifying and exploiting financing opportunities
• Provides personalized assistance for the exploitation of members’ research results and technologies, including IPR and technology transfer services
• Sharing of knowledge and resources amongst member-organizations with complementary interests, aiming to jointly – develop, produce and launch novel products and services to international markets
• Access to advanced information services e.g. technical reports, market analysis, etc.
• Provides specialized training seminars and workshops for HR development.

The General Assembly

The General Assembly consists of all member-organisations and is the supreme body of the cluster. All member-organisations have the right to express their opinions on all affairs regarding the cluster and decide through a voting process on all important matters concerning the operation and activity of the cluster. The General Assembly elect the HPhos Board of Directors.

Board of Directors

The Board of Directors is responsible for the administration and management of the cluster and is composed by 5 members, which are elected by the General Assembly meeting every three years. The current composition of the Board is the following:

Elias  Hontzopoulos Chairman & Treasurer Ioanna Zergioti Vice Chairman Christos Kouloumentas Member Dimitrios Apostolopoulos Member Konstantinos Vavekis Member

Cluster Facilitator

PRAXI Network is the cluster’s facilitator providing business support services to all member organizations and acting as a catalyst for the execution of all cluster activities with emphasis on the promotion and networking of the cluster in Greece and abroad. The cluster facilitator is also responsible to provide its assistance to all members without discrimination and to act under confidentiality, reliability and integrity.

Persons involved:

Alexandros Selimis Administrator

The Cluster

Innovative enterprises active in diverse areas of Photonics related technologies, have joined forces to create the first photonics cluster in Greece, the Hellenic Photonics Cluster (HPhos). HPhos comprises a founding core of knowledge-intensive enterprises and research organizations. Most of these enterprises are based in the broader area of Attica, providing various photonics products and services for industrial manufacturing & automation, telecoms, defense & security, cultural heritage, food, health, environment, energy efficiency and conversion.

Vision

HPhos aims to cluster all Greek entrepreneurial, industrial and academic players in order to create a hotbed for the development of new ideas and innovative products. Offering a fertile ecosystem that encourages the transfer of knowledge and expertise, it aims to become a critical support infrastructure to new entrepreneurship and extroversion of Greek enterprises and to provide networking channels to foreign enterprises and investors. HPhos’s ambition is to intensify cluster and network collaboration not only across borders, but also across sectorial boundaries in order to contribute in the emergence of new EU value chains that bring together enterprises from different sectors and better support SMEs in global competition.

History

The idea for creating a Greek cluster in the field of photonics has been maturing since 2005. Given the rise of Photonics in Europe as a Key Enabling Technology (KET), and the parallel development of clustering as an instrument for enhancing the innovation potential of a country or region, prompted the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH) to a series of initiatives to organise the Photonics community in Greece. As a first step it initially founded PhotonicsGR in 2008, as the Greek member of the European Technology Platform Photonics21, the main representative body of photonics at European level. In this framework PRAXI Network, a distinct technology transfer unit operating within FORTH, having worked closely for years with a significant number of photonics enterprises and RTOs, identified synergies and links amongst them which culminated to the facilitation and formation in 2011 of a cluster initiative, named Hellenic Photonics Cluster (HPhos).

Milestones

• 2005: The European Technology Platform Photonics21 was initially founded.
• 2008: PhotonicsGR, the first Photonics Technology Platform in Greece, was founded by 23 members representing major research, university and industrial organizations.
• 2011: The Hellenic Photonics Cluster was initially formed as an independent entity from the PhotonicsGR Technology Platform.
• 2013: The Photonics21 Association was founded as a legal entity to set up the Photonics PPP (Public Private Partnership) under the European Research Framework Programme Horizon 2020.
• 2015: The Hellenic Photonics Association (HPhos) was founded as a legal entity representing the novel photonics enterprises and research institutions concentrated in the broader area of Attica, Greece.
• 2018: HPhos becomes a member of European Photonics Alliance under the framework of Smart Specialisation Platform Industrial Modernisation/Photonics