On 17 February 2016, the first matchmaking event within the AdPack project - Future materials and products for advanced smart packaging (COSME) was held in Prague, the Czech Republic. The organiser of the meeting, Nanoprogres (the Czech nanotechnology cluster organisation) hosted the project partners - clusters from Belgium, Germany, Portugal and Sweden. Together, they aim at the establishment of the European Strategic Cluster Partnership in the emerging industry of future materials and products for advanced smart packaging.

The representatives of the AdPack project consortium met the Czech cluster community and state bodies, such as the National Cluster Association, Ministry of Industry and Trade, CzechInvest, cluster managers of CzechBio and Hi-tech Innovation Cluster of Pardubice and Technology Centre of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, in whose premises the meeting took place.

The first part of the seminar began with the introduction of the AdPack project and Nanoprogres by its manager, Lubos Komarek, followed by the project partners’ presentations, i.e. BalticNetPlasmaTec (plasmatic technology cluster, Germany, currently 71 members) represented by Katherina Ulrich, Plastiwin (plastic material cluster, Belgium, currently 87 members) represented by Elias Njeim, PackBridge (packaging cluster, Sweden, currently 225 members) represented by Johan Mårtensson and InovCluster (food industry cluster, Portugal, currently 168 members) represented by Susana Caio. This section opened a lively discussion on international cooperation possibilities among the visiting and other Czech clusters and also on cluster policies in individual countries.

The topic of cluster support continued also in the afternoon section within the presentation by Pavla Bruskova, the President of the National Cluster Association (NCA). The NCA’s role, activities and experience opened a discussion on differences between the cluster support approaches in the project partners’ countries where the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Co-operation Programme providing funding for cluster organisation was highly appreciated. The R&D cooperation potential of the participating clusters and their specialisation was finally addressed by Filip Auinger, the business development manager of the Science and Technology Park of the Palacky University in Olomouc.

Generally, the AdPack project event brought a number of new topics of interest and also personal relationships that will assist to facilitate the future internationalisation activities of the involved cluster organisations. The specific opportunities for Czech clusters and universities identified during the event like setting up the Cross-Cluster Innovation Platform – CLOU5 or transfer and commercialisation of research results of the Palacky University across the AdPack project partners are already on the agenda. Photogallery