TAGES provided a 2-days training to ITHIB (Istanbul Textile and Raw Materials Exporters Association) member companies on 21- 22 December 2021 at TİM (Turkish Exporters Assembly) premises in Istanbul, on the European Union (EU) R&D and Innovation Funds as part of ITHIB’s R&D and Innovation Program.
The training that 55 participants attended, aimed to strengthen members’ capacity in applying to EU projects. The first day of the 2-day program began with our CEO Leyla Arsan’s visionary speech on the EU funding approach, strategies, and especially in the future of Textile Technology with their impact. Moreover, she drew the attention of the audience on the importance of people, collaboration, and networking for achieving beyond state of the art technology and innovation in the textile industry not only in Europe but worldwide.
The second day was followed by the speech of the President of the Board in ITHIB; Ahmet Öksüz. Later on, our Projects Consultant Aslıhan Kağnıcı proceeded the 2nd day of the training and she explained what an EU project means, together with the examples of the successful EU projects in the field of textiles and informed the audiences on the project participation, preparation, and management processes. She underlined that cooperation and accordingly intellectual property rights and consortium agreements to be made in European projects are very important. She also informed the participants about the structure, participation, and application processes of Horizon Europe, EUREKA, EUROSTARS funding programmes.
ITHIB’s first R&D and Innovation Support Program aims to improve the R&D and innovation capacities of ITHIB’s member companies in the textile sector. The program started in 2021 and it will continue in 2022. In line with the sustainable development goals, the most important goal is to create new financing mechanisms for the companies with national and EU funding programme projects. All ITHIB member companies can apply to the program and there are two categories within the scope of this programme. In the first category, the studies will be carried out to increase the R&D & Innovation capacity, and in the second category, the internationalization of the companies and their access to the EU funds will be carried out. In the first category, it is planned to provide mentoring services to the companies by the expert consultants within the scope of strengthening the capacities of the companies in the fields of efficiency, digitalization, and sustainability. In the second category, it is aimed to provide the mentorship that companies that have developed a project idea for international grants, created the project infrastructure, and created investment plans in the fields of efficiency, digitalization, and innovation, will need for their R&D, P&D and innovation projects. Applications continue to be accepted.
The fruitful agenda of the training drew great interest which will later lead the participants on the European way to innovation.
