BestPhorm21 – a new decisive support project to Horizon Europe’s “Photonics Partnership”

BestPhorm21 – a new decisive support project to Horizon Europe’s “Photonics Partnership”- has been awarded from the EU’s Horizon 2020 to start on January 1, 2021

BestPhorm21 is led by the Photoncs21 Secretariat, VDITZ, in partnership with 14 National Technology Platforms and clusters; HPhos being among them with a budget of 54.000 €. The project is aiming to develop a community driven European photonics industrial strategy and roadmap,

engaging over 3,000 experts from industry and academia, that will guide Horizon Europe and industrial investments in R&D and advanced manufacturing. Therefore, BestPhorm21 will decisively contribute to increasing European technological sovereignty in a key digital technology such as photonics.

In addition, it will establish new strategic value chains between photonics and end user industries, through the delivery of 7 additional “photonics enabled” end user industry roadmaps. This will be done in close cooperation with the respective industry stakeholders organizations, involving experts from both the photonics and end-user industries. The industrial strategy will result in new product launches and services that drive sales growth and support the digitalization of these sectors.

To achieve this goal, BestPhorm21 will trigger cross-member state and regional investments, which mobilize and leverage Europe‘s full innovation ecosystem to keep Europe at the global forefront in photonics R&D and technology development. Specifically, BestPhorm21 will deliver cross-member state calls valued at more than 10 m€ and 5 interregional investment projects.

In all, BestPhorm21 intends to increase access to risk finance for over 300 photonics start-ups and SMEs in their critical growth phases, through “blended finance” (European Investment Council’s Accelerator), “Venture Capital” (dedicated VC events) and “Venture debt” (European Investment Bank).