METABUILDING LABS: METAclustered, SME oriented European Open Innovation Test Bed for the BUILDING envelope materials industrial sector using a harmonised and upgraded technical framework and living LABS

Description of the Project

METABUILDING LABS is a five-year Horizon 2020 EU-funded project whose main objectives are to unlock the innovation potential, improve competitiveness and boost market impact of the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the European construction sector.

For that reason, an Open Innovation Digital Platform will serve as a Single-Entry Point, giving access to a powerful innovation ecosystem, including more than 100 testing facilities across 12 European countries.

A large consortium of 40 partners have joined forces to provide the construction sector with an easy access to a wide network of high-value testing facilities (laboratories, test benches, pilot buildings and living labs) allowing stakeholders to develop and test innovative systems and solutions for next generation buildings.

These testing facilities will be provided by:

• Reserch & Technology Organisations (RTOs)
• Living Labs
• Social Housing Buildings

The METABUILDING LABS network of testing facilities will extend across the following countries:

Austria· Belgium · France · Germany · Hungary · Ireland · Italy · Luxembourg · Poland · Spain · Sweden · Turkey

METABUILDING LABS project reaches out to SMEs and provides them with access to Open Innovation Testbeds (OITB) as part of a wider innovation support ecosystem, which will be of high value and tailored to their needs. Some SMEs, representing the main targeted stakeholder group, form part of the project consortium to collaborate in the specification and development of the OITB and its services, and to “test drive” their innovations. The OITB will help to accelerate SME innovation and allow SMEs to become competitive against big industry players.

In order to engage an ever-growing number of SMEs in innovation on a European scale, an OITB not only needs to create, organise and put to work technical and regulatory testing facilities and services, but should also deploy a sound and effective strategy to bring European SMEs into its ecosystem by means of metaclustering. The main idea behind the metaclustering concept is to maximize the outreach to up to 30.000 SMEs from all European regions through 12 Metaclusters that interconnect 180 existing European Clusters that will reach SMEs through a cascade communication methodology:

METACLUSTERS > EUROPEAN CLUSTERS > NATIONAL PLATFORMS > REGIONAL CLUSTERS > SMEs

The METABUILDING LABS project (G.A. Nº 953193) is closely related to the H2020 project METABUILDING (G.A. Nº 873964), (www.metabuilding-project.eu), which started in June 2020. The METABUILDING project has put in place the first layer of this ecosystem by involving 6 target countries (which will now be extended to 13 European countries) and has created an Open Innovation Digital Platform for the innovation ecosystem of the construction sector. This platform will be consolidated and enlarged through METABUILDING LABS.

The metabuilding.com platform will serve as a virtual and ubiquitous Single-Entry Point to innovation support and services to the European construction ecosystem in general, and particularly to the Innovation testbed services, which are being developed within the METABUILDING LABS project.

This represents an ambitious twofold intent, which is strategically underpinned by the European Construction Technology Platform’s (ECTP) roadmap. Moreover, 21 of the ECTP’s members, including the ECTP itself, are partners in the METABUILDING LABS project themselves.

Industrial Partners

Indra's Role

Minsait, through the Onesait Platform, will collaborate in this project in various ways, highlighting the work packages of:

• Elaboration of the requirements for the Metabuilding Labs innovation test benches.
• Development and integration of digital platform services.
• Modeling and exploitation of virtual test benches..
• Technological developments in Metabuilding Labs using Living Labs as pilots.

In addition to collaborating on these packages, we will be responsible for defining the digital services architecture of the test benches, and we will also lead the Living Labs testing services.

We are also going to collaborate in a complementary way in these other work packages:

• Exploitation: business models, replicability and ecosystem expansion.
• Communication, diffusion and training.
• Coordination and management

Universities and Technology centres

Technologies used

Onesait Platform

More information

This project, under reference nº H2020- 953193 has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.