Increase the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), improving their capacity to invest in innovation at European level – this is the main goal of DIVAx, an ongoing project in the agricultural sector, with INESC TEC’s participation.
Divax – funded by the SmartAgri Hubs programme, whose mission is to promote the digitalisation of the agricultural sector – aims to overcome the difficulties that small businesses face when trying to enter the European market, which in itself provides a very unique trading environment in terms of language, culture and organisation. This project aims to develop an online platform for companies with technological development ideas in the agro-food sector, bringing together, in a single place, specialised tools and services that facilitate their internationalisation.
INESC TEC’s work is being developed at the Centre for Innovation Technology and Entrepreneurship (CITE) and at the Centre for Telecommunications and Multimedia (CTM). In the words of Sara Neves, CITE researcher and head of the project at INESC TEC, “the main objective is to facilitate the establishment of digital SMEs in the area of digital agro-food in Europe, providing a range of services aimed at a better knowledge of the European ecosystem and opportunities, and personalised support for the elaboration of cross-border innovation projects”.
Kick-off event
The kick-off event of the DIVAx project took place in June: the “European Day for Digital Agriculture” welcomed more than 180 people from 21 countries. This specialised virtual fair, also acting as a display of the final objective of the project, provided a series of workshops, networking opportunities and a thematic exhibition, as well as an overview of this type of business in the European market.
DIVA and DIVAx projects
In March 2021, the DIVA project (funded by the H2020 programme, with INESC TEC involvement) ended, contributing to the funding of 134 digital projects related to the agro-food sector, thus supporting close to 180 European SMEs. This was followed by the creation of a cross-border community encompassing digital companies in the sector, which expressed the need and willingness to share skills and knowledge at European level, in order to establish more powerful value chains.
Thus, the DIVAx initiative was born, as a continuation of the DIVA project; it aims to maintain this momentum, providing companies with a set of services to increase their knowledge of the European ecosystem, allowing them to benefit from opportunities for cross-border collaboration.
With a total funding of approximately €112K, the DIVAx project involves Agri Sud-Ouest Innovation (France), Valorial (France), Fundacion Corporación Tecnológica de Andalucía (Spain), H-Farm (Italy) and the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (Portugal).
The INESC TEC researcher mentioned in this news piece is associated with INESC TEC.
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