On 26 July 2022, SoTecIn Factory partners organised an online kick-off meeting for the 7 Regional Hubs led by the project partner Impact Hub. But what are the Regional Hubs exactly and what is their role in guiding the SoTecIn Factory Community towards mission-based sustainable industry? Read more to find out! 

The main goal of the SoTecIn Factory, an EU-funded project, is to promote a systemic change towards industry’s sustainability. The project’s strategy is centered around restructuring 7 key industry value chains (Electronics and ICT, Batteries and Vehicles, Packaging, Plastics, Construction and Buildings, Textiles, Food, Water and Nutrients) by implementing higher value “Rs” of circular economy, i.e., reuse, repair, refurbish and remanufacture.  

Yet, such an ambitious transformation faces a great challenge of being dissolved due to lack of unified efforts across diverse industry sectors, actors and disciplines. The answer to that problem lies in a mission-based approach, aiming at a circular transformation of industrial value chains. SoTecIn Factory will bring together a diverse range of industry members to design and steward shared key value chain-based missions in a bottom-up manner. 

The solutions for the industry’s biggest challenges come within the industry itself while SoTecIn Factory helps in bringing innovation to the surface through its collaborative environment of the SoTecIn Factory Community spread across 20+ countries. The Community is convened and driven by 7 Regional Hubs: 

1. Netherlands (North-West, including Northern France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland)  
2. Portugal (South-West, including Spain, Southern France); 
3. Italy (Centre-South, including Slovenia, Croatia, Malta); 
4. Romania (South-East, including Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Serbia, Ukraine); 
5. Hungary (North-East, including Slovakia, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia); 
6. Germany (Centre-North, including Denmark, Austria, Sweden, Finland).
7. Turkey (East, including Armenia and Georgia)

 The activities of the 7 Regional Hubs are led and hosted by the project partner Impact Hub and its local organisations: IH Amsterdam, IH Lisbon, IH Milan IH Bucharest, IH Budapest, IH Hamburg, and IH Istanbul in their respective regions. 

The 7 Regional Hubs will support the Community members in the formulation of at least 7 missions (at least one mission per each region) that are relevant for their regional economic systems, as listed above. 

Furthermore, Regional Hubs will allow the SoTecIn Factory not only to constitute missions, but to also connect through several cross-European mashups and workshops, subsequently identifying concrete mission-based challenges as the basis of future Open Calls for social innovators (which will be open in the Q3 2023). 

 Systemic change is arguably a complex process, from defining key value chain-based missions, and real life-challenges, to seeking their solutions through social innovation. However, SoTecIn Factory plans to involve you, the industry leaders, in the action from the very beginning, so stay tuned for all exciting events and activities of the 7 Regional Hubs in the near future! 

Screenshot from the kick-off meeting of the 7 SoTecIn Factory Regional Hubs