The H2020 FabSpace 2.0 project has just started! The kick-off meeting took place in Toulouse on 7 March, 2016. Find out more about this new concept.

FabSpace 2.0 aims at making universities open innovation centres for their region and improving their contribution to the performance of societies. It will concentrate on one innovation area with high expected socio-economic and environmental impact: geodata-driven innovation, by leveraging space data in particular. When Universities must endorse a new role as co-creators of innovations in the context of Science 2.0 principles, the future realisation of open data as a new innovation scene needs to set up a creative environment in which developers from the civil society or industry or the academic research, public administrations and civil organisations can meet, work together, co-create new tools and business models.

The proposal consists in a new kind of open-innovation centres: FabSpaces. A fab lab is a one-stop shop access to any materials, machines and tools to digitally manufacture new products, a FabSpace will be a one-stop shop-access to a range of data (incl. space data), free software & data processing tools, to develop new applications.

FabSpace 2.0 will provide a new free-access service and place dedicated to collaborative data-driven innovation in 6 European universities (13 at the end of the project). Through online support, entrepreneurship & innovation leadership trainings for students and researchers, the human capital among FabSpace users will be enhanced. The link between universities, industry, the public sector and civil society will be strengthened with 18 local and 3 European contests consisting in developing new applications to tackle challenges launched by ONGs & companies. 

1500 students and researchers are expected to use FabSpaces, half of them will participate in contests and 21 teams will be invited to events were they will meet experts and start-ups. FabSpace sustainability will be ensured before the end of the project. By doing so, FabSpace 2.0 intends to make universities regional catalysts and leaders of innovation in the area of datadriven innovations.

Initiated by the Aerospace Valley cluster, the project is coordinated by the University of Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (UPS). The consortium brings together 15 partners, including universities and business and innovation support organisations from six European regions. EBN is responsible for the project Communication. 

The sucess rate for this H2020 topic call was below 7%, with only 3 projects from within 45 proposals receiving funding, including FabSpace 2.0 (€3.5 Million).

For more information about FabSpace 2.0, please get in contact with Robert Sanders.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 693210.