The Sustainable Process Industry through Resource and Energy Efficiency (SPIRE) Public-Private Partnership (PPP), launched in the framework of Horizon 2020 Programme, aims to develop enabling technologies and solutions along the value chain that are essential to the long-term sustainability of the European process industries, decoupling economic growth from use of resources. In this regard, INSPIRE will design integrated business models creating more competitive clusters through resource sharing and optimization.
All relevant supply chain stakeholders are involved in the activities carried out throughout the project and will benefit from the proposed solutions to ensure successful deployment and application of business models, involving different stakeholders such as policy makers, regulators, local authorities, manufacturing firms, logistics providers, technology providers, academic institutes, SMEs, etc. Special attention will be given to how INSPIRE approach towards SMEs as partners in value chains. In order to do so, INSPIRE will determine the requirements of SMEs as actors in supply chains, the potential of the new business solutions in terms of improving the competitive advantage of European SMEs and/or creating new business opportunities for local SMEs in the near future.
The Stakeholders’ Community forming the “INSPIRE European Process Industry Forum” extend the circle of contractual partners and experts and includes all relevant stakeholders. This includes all relevant actors from inside and outside the European process industries, starting with a limited number of industrial parks and related industrial stakeholders (process industries that generate waste and residual side streams, potential, users, orchestrators and solution providers), and iteratively test and expand INSPIRE’s concept eventually towards the wider European network of stakeholders and Industrial Parks. The network will include international, European and national stakeholders representing users, technology suppliers, policy makers, SME associations, and research organisations. Also these stakeholders may build strong links to other relevant networks and stakeholder groups e.g. the network of the European Technology Platform Manufuture, reviously funded and related projects, associations that represent different process industries, SMEs, etc. As such they not only complement the expertise of the consortium but also ensure the involvement of a wide stakeholder community, especially in the dissemination activities described in section 2.2. These stakeholders will be engaged into the project activities by the participatory dissemination channels and through extensive networking activities. They build the seed for an initiative that endures over the project duration and beyond.
