Over the last years and months, the 3DP Pilot was able to design various SMEs-led ‘application-specific projects’ generated by active demo-cases. For some of these company led use cases, the Pilot was able to describe the activities and associated costs for each project in detail. For some projects, full business models and business plans were generated (with the support of the DG REGIO Pilot Action which supported 3DP Pilot in 2018-2019).
Within the Nano Pilot, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, in close cooperation with Region Skåne and Lund University, have established and started operations of the ProNano pilot line. On the campus of Lund University, ProNano is Swedens first test and demonstration environment for the industrialization of nanotechnology-based materials, processes, and components. The facility gives new possibilities for innovations within nanotechnology to scale up for becoming commercially viable.
The 3DP Pilot Platform for Pitching and Implementing new cross regional projects was launched in October 2019 in order to further position the 3DP Pilot as an open and flexible cross-regional platform for generating and facilitating the implementation of ambitious demonstration projects that are not (per se) under the scope of the current demo cases.
Early 2020, the 3DP PAN EU project (a European Parliament supported project managed by DG GROW that has been generated based on the activities and needs of the 3DP Pilot) launched its ‘Call for proposals to provide services and funds to SMEs to support pan-European demonstration projects based on 3DP technologies’. This call was launched with the objective of testing and validating up to 10 industrial demonstration 3D printing-based projects in various application fields, making use of the pan-European 3dppan.eu platform.
The call for ideas launched in September to support the start-up of new demo-cases in the Nano Pilot has originated three proposals.
A first demo-case is focused on MEMS for nano-analytiX and is led by the Bologna Unit of CNR Institute of Microelectronics and Microsystems. It aims to demonstrate and deploy MEMS technology for the integration of analytical functionalities in miniaturized sensing systems by adding analytical functionalities of nano-enabled MEMS devices to microsensors.