Led by ACC10, SECPhO attended the Smart Specialisation day in Brussels to support the presentation of Connect-EU group where SECPHO is collaborating for two years with CETEMMSA, CAIAC, ICFO, CNM, SECARTYS, Solartys, FICOSA, ICMAB, ICIQ, CIN2, and CIMITEC PEC4. These members represent OLAE (Organic & Large Area Electronics) community from Catalunya that has enormous potential to give great answers to many societal problems of energy, environment, information and communication, mobility or health in the future.

During these two years, the group has developed a strategic agenda for research in the fields of photonics and electronics.

On the day of event, in the morning we attended several presentations about the Horizon 2020 program by the European Commission Directorate DGCONNECT. It was discussed in depth about what the Smart Specialisation is and how does it connect with such Key Enabling Technology as photonics. Also attendees were introduced about the policies to be followed by regions in Europe and what are the keys to competitiveness in the coming years: specialization and collaboration in Europe. This objective is critical target for the SECPhO members to participate in future European projects.

In the afternoon, we attended different European cluster’s presentations explaining their success stories.

Sergio Saez, the SECPhO manager, took the time to continue on building bridges of cooperation with different European actors as EPIC or PopSUD, as such partnerships can create opportunities for our members.

Finally, SECPhO would like to thank ACC10 for the strong support during these two years and opportunity to attend the conference, and especially to Minerva Elías from Brussels, in the heart of the European Commission, working on generating key opportunities for our future.