We are one of the creators and technical contributors to the new European Horizon Europe project, called Resilient Supply Chains for Europe, or ResC4EU for short. The project started in January 2024 and is funded by the European Commission for the period of three years. The project consortium consists of 10 partners, including:
- Six industrial clusters that have immediate access to over 1000 SMEs. The cluster organisations cover logistics and supply chains of GHG-heavy industries, wood and furniture, advanced IT and have – in overall – outreach into major industrial ecosystems in Europe.
- Two research institutes focusing on logistics, supply chain risk modelling and product life-cycle analysis.
- Two SMEs, one orchestrating the outreach activities of the project and another one – GreenTwin – providing a B2B supply chain platform .
ResC4EU is organised around 4 key objectives:
- Defining risk, disruption and alerts models for the supply chains of 14 “at risk” industrial ecosystems;
- Developing a holistic European value network for strengthening supply chains fostered by industrial clusters and strategic alliances;
- Accelerating the adoption of advanced methods and technologies for sustainability and resilience, through the use of a dedicated digital B2B platform, thereby benefitting from platform based growth models through network effects; and
- Demonstrating supply chain resilience of industrial ecosystems while also achieving climate neutrality and sustainability of economic processes.
The workplan is designed to first activate the SMEs in the 6 clusters and then engage them in three ways: (a) to foster knowledge transfer early on, between the more technology-aware SMEs and those interested in innovating their processes; (b) to develop an actionable model for supply chain analysis that can be supported by the platform, leading to supply chain risk mitigation and resilience; and (c) to create impact by fostering new pan-European as well as cross-regional collaboration using a mix of strategically planned physical meetings and large-scale virtual community-building activities, among them “ResC4EU Net-Zero Industry Academies”.
