In this interview, Annabelle Sion of ELCA member Polymeris highlights the key challenges in rubber, plastics, and composites, especially with the rise of bioplastics and EVs. She shares how Polymeris supports its members through innovation, EU funding, and projects like AMULET, advancing lightweight materials and sustainable solutions.

What are the biggest challenges your members face with rubber, plastics, and composites, and what recent innovations are addressing these issues?

In the process of the growing use of recyclates and bioplastics, a major challenge for the moulding industry is to develop tools for processing polymeric materials with new parameters. For manufacturers in the automotive sector, reducing the environmental impact of the production process is now a top priority. There are value chain management concerns that most of the growth in the global automotive industry will occur outside the EU.This requires leading and implementing the twin transition and ensuring the EU industry remains resilient and has access to the global growth market which will be strongly affected by the switch from ICE-powered vehicles to EVs.

Could you provide an overview of the key activities and initiatives Polymeris organises to support its members?

As a French competitiveness cluster, our main goal is to support our members in their innovation projects and activities. It is important, especially for SMEs, to be innovative and resilient if they want to stay competitive and answer the current challenges. In this sense, the cluster is providing its members with a monthly technological and business watch, and regular information on the upcoming innovation opportunities, such as funding, events, conferences… The main strength of our cluster is its network, both within and outside the cluster members. We organise innovation days, on the topics of our strategic roadmap that are: circular economy, advanced materials and digital industry. During these events, members are invited to pitch their ideas, their need for projects partners, their on-going activities, and engage into networking and match-making activities, with cluster members or invited participants.
Another main strength of the cluster is our European network and actions. In 2023, we have supported more than 20 companies into receiving EU funding for innovation, bringing more than €4million grants for these companies.

Polymeris has been part of the ELCA Community for 5 years, what value and benefits ELCA has brought to Polymeris and its members?

Polymeris has been an ELCA members since 2019, with an increased involvement and implication in the network activities and initiatives. ELCA brought one key element in POLYMERIS’ development at national and European scale: the AMULET project. Started in 2021, AMULET was funded under the call Horizon 2020 “Innosup-1: cluster facilitated projects for new industrial value chains”. With a budget of 5 million Euro, with 2.5m€ budget dedicated to financial support to third parties (FSTP or Cascade funding), it aimed to foster innovation and cross-sectoral partnerships between European SMEs to develop innovative solutions for lightweight advanced materials. In 2022, POLYMERIS took over the coordination of the AMULET project, and, with the help of the ELCA community, gained a lot of visibility at European level. For the members of the cluster, it was also a possibility to know more about the network, and the challenges currently faced by the AMULET sectors (Energy, Automotive, Aerospace, Building) on weight reduction and advanced materials. 

How does ELCA foster innovation in lightweighting, and can you share any success stories or breakthroughs resulting from their efforts?

ELCA is a great example of a community contributing to the promotion and development of innovation in lightweighting technologies and materials. With a network of both clusters and RTOs, the community is a great place to enhance industry/research cooperation and facilitate the transfer of technology and innovation uptake. As several projects are now part of the community with members involved as coordinators or partners, we can also create good knowledge valorisation schemes and share it within and outside the network.
A good success story is the support, through AMULET program, of the development of 15 solutions on lightweight, developed by consortia of SMEs, answering challenges faced by larger companies (challenge givers). The solutions are under final stage of AMULET support scheme and will be presented to the world during the Kompozyt Show in Krakow, on the 17th of October. The ELCA General Assembly will also take place during this event, and it will be a good opportunity for AMULET beneficiaries and other industrial stakeholders to meet with the ELCA members.

Many thanks to Annabelle Sion from Polymeris learn more about them here on their official page.

View issue 5 of our newsletter that features this interview plus more!

Read issue 5

To reach out to a member of the network, contact communication@elcanetwork.eu