2020 General Assembly of the European Lightweight Cluster Alliance (ELCA)

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, this year the 2020 General Assembly of the European Lightweight Cluster Alliance (ELCA) took place remotely.

The event was organized and hosted by ELCA management team represented by Helena Comas, Dr. Ricardo del Valle and Dr. Aitor Hornés of Bax & Company.

The venue took place on December 16th. In this occasion, the members had the opportunity to review the activities carried out and the accomplishments achieved in 2020. This year the network has been consolidated, keeping 17 hubs distributed in 15 different EU countries. Moreover, the network secured 5 million € in funding, initiated 3 projects of diverse European funding programmes and submitted 4 project proposals.

It is noteworthy to mention that the Open Innovation ELCA online platform has been successfully launched at the end of 2020, giving definitively a push towards establishing fruitful international collaborations among ELCA members across Europe.

The members also had the opportunity to discuss about the implementation of the activities proposed for the next year, 2021, and a calendar with milestones was presented. Everyone agreed that this year the commitment of all the ELCA members will be of great relevance for ensuring the engagement of their members: SMEs, RTOs and large corporations, which will be the base for meaningful cooperation. In parallel, seven lightweight champions and experts presented their innovation priorities in lightweighting activities for 2021 during the event.