Horizon Europe Brokerage Visits: Energy Tech & Smart Manufacturing Highlights

Innovate UK are committed to fostering international cooperation. In line with this strategy, a bilateral initiative for UK innovators to travel to Italy, Spain and Germany have been launched to strengthen partnerships for future Horizon Europe Research and Innovation (R&I) projects. To support this, several two-day Horizon Europe Brokerage Visits have taken place in partnership with Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), the UK’s Science and Technology Network (STN) and UK National Contact Points (NCPs).

The objectives of the visit are:

1. Enhance UK – Italy, Spain, and Germany Relationship in R&I: Strengthen collaboration and participation in research and innovation (R&I) between the UK and several European countries.
2. Create partnerships for Horizon Europe Competitions: Foster joint efforts to improve collaboration in upcoming Horizon Europe R&I competitions.
3. Develop Collaborations in the Smart Manufacturing, hydrogen, and battery technology sectors: Unite UK and European experts, partners, businesses, and industry to identify gaps and explore opportunities for collaboration.
4. Building Innovation Networks for Horizon Europe: Establish and strengthen innovation networks to support successful participation and collaboration in Horizon Europe.

Italy highlights

During the Italian Horizon Europe Brokerage Visit to Rome, the UK delegation met with a collaborative Italian organisations to discuss working together to form a hydrogen, battery technology or smart manufacturing consortium that will involves projects focused on net zero industrial technologies; smart maintenance and repair within the construction sector; physical and cognitive augmentation in advanced manufacturing; digitally enabled production textiles and industry 5.0 system innovation hubs.

During the highly productive two-day visit, the participants had the privilege of being hosted at the stunning Villa Wolkonsky, the official residence of the British ambassador in Rome. Whilst on the brokerage visit, the delegation discussed UK and Italian Horizon Europe collaborative opportunities; shared their business offerings in company pitch sessions; got involved in innovative networking workshops; and finished off with proposal and proposal writing and consortium building workshops.

Spain highlights

During this Spain Horizon Europe Brokerage Visit to Madrid, a series of facilitated workshops enabled participants to network, share insights, and form lasting partnerships for Horizon Europe R&I projects. UK and Spanish participants had the opportunity to pitch their innovative businesses to key Spanish businesses and academic institutions working on smart manufacturing, hydrogen and batteries. Thank you to the Innovate UK partners, including the British Embassy in Madrid and the UK Science and Technology Network in Spain, who supported us with this brokerage visit.

Germany highlights

During the Hydrogen energy and battery technology German Horizon Europe Brokerage Visit to Berlin in February 2025 was organised by Innovate UK, the NCP team, the British Embassy Berlin, the delegation participated in networking and pitching sessions focusing on strengthening collaboration opportunities and looking to form consortia. Once the group had been introduced to each other, attendees explored the EUREF-Campus Berlin to where the delegation learnt more about cutting-edge energy technologies. Following on from that, the delegation toured the Technische Universität Berlin battery and hydrogen labs and learned about how the UK and Germany are collaborating on strategic research and discussed applying for future Horizon Europe funding opportunities.

Horizon Europe Brokerage Visit key takeaways

Overall, these Horizon Europe Brokerage Visits were a huge success. The delegations benefitted from:

• Building stronger partnerships through facilitating new research and industry collaborations to drive innovation in smart manufacturing and sustainable energy.
• Discovering future funding opportunities through identifying potential Horizon Europe calls relevant to smart manufacturing, hydrogen and battery advancements.
• Learning innovation insights through firsthand experience of Germany’s cutting-edge developments in smart manufacturing, energy storage and hydrogen infrastructure.
• Gaining strategic knowledge exchange through strengthened cooperation between academia and industry to accelerate net-zero solutions.

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