ITEA PO Days 2023 - Interest in ITEA still high after 25 years

ITEA Call 2023 for project proposals was launched on 12 September in conjunction with the ITEA Project Outline (PO) Preparation Days in Berlin. As 2023 marks the year of ITEA's 25th anniversary, the PO Days were also the perfect setting to celebrate this milestone.

Successful physical event with online components

Like last year, the ITEA PO Days 2023 event combined the best practices of both ITEA's online and physical events, in order for participants to get the most out of their event participation. In the weeks before the physical event in Berlin, an online preparation session, 12 online country information sessions and two online project idea pitch sessions (with 55 pitches) were organised. The online Project idea tool and Partner search enabled the participants to already explore the 82 submitted project ideas and get in touch with potential partners.

The project ideas in the Project idea tool were clustered by ITEA's societal challenges and although most challenges were well covered, the number of Smart health (20), Smart engineering (19) and Smart industry (18) project ideas was very high.

Next to the plenary sessions in Berlin, there was plenty of time for interaction during the poster session - in which 57 project ideas were presented – and the many lively workgroup sessions. These group discussions resulted in 17 plenary project idea presentations. Also this year, Public Authorities from 10 countries attended the event and combined their online Country information session with a poster at the event, informing participants about national priorities, eligibility criteria and funding outlook.

Strong participation

This year 293 participants from 18 countries joined the PO Days event in Berlin. Germany, the Netherlands and Türkiye were among the top three countries in terms of participation and also Canada participated again with a large delegation in Berlin.

With 53% returning participants and 47% newcomers in Berlin, the ITEA PO Days confirm that the ITEA Community keeps growing and attracting new members while retaining the experienced project partners that can guide them.

With a high overall score of 4.3 out of 5.0, the physical ITEA PO Days in Berlin were very well appreciated by its participants.

ITEA Awards of Excellence

On 13 September, during the 2023 ITEA Awards of Excellence ceremony in Berlin, three projects were awarded for their impressive results with great benefits for industry and society: I²PANEMA (Award for 'Exceptional Excellence' for outstanding results in all three categories: Innovation, Business impact and Standardisation), IVVES (Award for Innovation) and SAMUEL (Award for Innovation).

Hosted by ITEA Vice-chairman Jean-François Lavignon, the ITEA Awards of Excellence ceremony presented the results of the three award-winning projects and provided a great opportunity to learn from the best, as the project leaders shared what it takes and brings to create an award-winning project.

We are very proud of the impressive results that the I²PANEMA, IVVES and SAMUEL projects achieved within the ITEA programme. We invite you to learn more about these projects!

25 years of ITEA

The PO Days also provided the perfect opportunity to celebrate ITEA’s 25th anniversary; 25 years of international collaboration. Over this period, the ITEA Community has grown to over 2000 unique project partners, creating huge impact and changing businesses and lives. But also new long-lasting partnerships and friendships evolved along the way. In the upcoming edition of the ITEA Magazine you can read more about the festivities and see how the Community celebrated ITEA's 25th anniversary in Berlin.

Join ITEA Call 2023

If you were not able to participate in the ITEA PO Days 2023, but you are interested in taking part in ITEA Call 2023, you can still check the project ideas in the ITEA Project idea tool which is accessible at the ITEA PO Days website. Via this tool you can contact the project idea leaders via email in case you would be interested to join a Project Outline. In this overview you can see what kind of partners or expertise the projects are still looking for.

We wish everyone good luck with the preparations of their project proposal and are at your disposal in case you need support.

Missed out?

If you missed one of the sessions, recordings and presentations are available online. Please note that the project-idea related information/presentations are only accessible for those with a signed NDA for ITEA Call 2023.

 Deadline for PO submission: 13 November – 17:00 CET

Check the ITEA Call 2023 Calendar