ENTOV-HVM Mission and Policy

The Open European Network for ENTerprise InnOVation in High Value Manufacturing (ENTOV-HVM) is an inclusive interdisciplinary bottom-up open European knowledge alliance where experienced and young generations of researchers and innovators across existing, emergent and potential research-intensive spaces passionately share the purpose of enabling and increasing the number of breakthrough scientific developments in high value manufacturing leading to new concepts, services and products and thereby contributing to bridging the research and innovation divide and participation gaps in Europe and strengthening European research and innovation capacities at individual, (sub-) group, enterprise, regional, intra- and international level by:

(a) significantly increasing the number of related scientific developments that are visible to and mature enough for successful consumption by existing innovation acceleration / transfer mechanisms at local, regional, national and transnational level,  and

(b) disruptively accelerating the progress and survival rate of such scientific developments through the diffusion of innovation curve from ideation, through research, socialization, market validation and commercialization,

with the aspiration of enabling responsible real-time innovation at all levels of high value manufacturing.

High value manufacturing is understood as the application of leading edge technical knowledge and expertise to the creation of products, production processes, and associated services which have strong potential to bring sustainable growth and high economic value. Activities hereby cover the complete circular product life cycle and are characterised by a combination of high research and development intensity and high growth.

Innovation is understood as the flow of knowledge from its place of origin to the place of highest need for that knowledge, whereby knowledge is understood to represent the capacity to act effectively in context. A capacity to act is a living system of intangible assets in the form of human competence and human relationships with tangible assets in the form of products and financial capital which are in continuous flowing exchange and application. Innovation is understood to begin with the application of an idea by an opinion leader in the (potential) user community and to end with the commercial adoption of the idea by the late majority members of that community.

By consciously serving its complex adaptive nature through the pivotal and novel role of “web weavers”, ENTOV-HVM uncovers and supports those true patterns of collaboration which have continuously proven themselves over the course of history as archetypes for truly successful innovation. “Web weavers” are a trustworthy, deeply connected group of diverse world class game changers, at all career stages, from multiple disciplines with a passion for innovation and addressing industrial and societal challenges who exhibit intensive behavioural preferences of caring for, humility and openness towards, and curiosity in creating the space for breakthrough actionable and pragmatic opportunities in the public domain leading to measurable impacts on a wide range of relevant intellectual and financial capital within disruptively short periods of time. Web weavers are like a surgical dream-team who understand industry / research challenges, operate to create actionable solutions and deliver measurable impact.

ENTOV-HVM builds on a robust tribe of stakeholders in the critical roles of innovators, through users, product packagers, buyers, funders, to marketeers and commercializers, and follows an emergent pattern of stakeholder relationships. ENTOV-HVM feels, tastes, smells, sounds, looks and desires to be an incident response phenomenon.  

In order to achieve its aspiration, ENTOV-HVM provides support for activities such as:

• Regular network conferences and work group meetings at member institutions.
• Short-term scientific missions, training schools and joint research-industry workshops to develop a scientific and technological network between members.
• Living labs and a facilitated evolutionary process for cohorts of young innovators through the innovation life cycle integrating all stakeholders from scientific communities, enterprises, policy makers and society to enable the rapid exploitation of the research outcomes.
• Conference participation and publications in peer-reviewed international journals for dissemination of results of research activities in order to improve their scientific, social and economic impact.
• Intensive pro-active facilitation of exchanges among participants of the network for the continuous provision of further collaboration opportunities in order to employ all talented and creative human resources available in the (extended) network to overcome the bottlenecks linked to geographic location, experience, age or gender.
• Continuous expansion of and input to the network including existing and planned European research networks in order to increase their efficiency, effectiveness and impact at all levels.

Furthermore, in support of excellence and inclusiveness, ENTOV-HVM actively works to ensure that all objectives are achieved by groups of cross-border participants with a positive promotion of geographical, age and gender balance.

The objectives of ENTOV-HVM are:

• Prepare and conduct training schools and joint research-industry workshops at member institutions which serve as launch-pads for cohorts of innovators and spawn local mirrors of ENTOV-HVM in a fractal manner.
• Provide joint-accredited educational offerings across participating institutes of higher education which include the circulation of participants through the diversity of participants.

• Counterbalance research communities’ unequal access to knowledge, infrastructures, funding and resources through short-term scientific missions and Living Labs.
• Increase the visibility and integration of researchers to the leading knowledge hubs of Europe, as well as to acquire their necessary leadership skills, regardless of their location, age or gender through positive discrimination in the co-creation of research studies to be published in leading international peer-reviewed journals, (reverse-) mentorship teams at each member institution, conference presentations and work group leaderships.
• Contribute to trigger structural changes in the national research systems of member countries by creating, publishing and disseminating policy guidelines.
• Identify excellence across Europe by building on the rich history of innovation dynamics across the globe to contribute to Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe widening objectives especially through the nurturing of innovation cohorts.

ENTOV-HVM is especially dedicated to the creation of “open spaces” enabling the creation of those critical personal relationships and discussions which have continuously demonstrated their pivotal nature in enabling ideas to arise and grow through assimilation in user communities to achieve wide-spread adoption in order to create measurable value at individual, (sub-) group, enterprise, regional, intra- and international level.