ENTRANCE provides visibility and outreach to European first-of-a-kind zero (or close to zero) emission transport and mobility products, technologies and services with a Technology Readiness Level of 7 or above. The solutions covered by the project concept support the goals established by the European Commission to reduce transport CO2 emissions and respond to the increasing mobility needs of people and goods. Therefore, offering novel approaches to achieve (i) better transport and mobility, (ii) less pollution, and (iii) less congestion. The transport solutions must cover one or more of the following goals:
- Increase the efficiency of the transport and mobility system.
- Integrate transport and mobility planning.
- Encourage the shift to lower-emission transport modes.
- Boost the deployment of low-emission alternative energy for transport and mobility.
- Remove obstacles to the electrification of transport and the use of alternative fuels.
- Move towards zero-emission vehicles to accelerate the transition towards low- and zero-emission vehicles.
- Optimise the use of transport infrastructures, corridors as well as hubs and terminals.
- Boost the transport network collaboration and coordination.
- Pursue global efforts to control and improve emissions from international aviation and maritime transport.
- Support the European Green Deal.
The transport modes (air, water, rail and road) are considered not only independently but also as combined and cross-modal transport concepts such as multi-, synchro, inter- and co-modality. On the other hand, the transport stakeholders targeted by project activities include (i) the private transport and mobility sector, such as automobile manufacturers (OEMs) and their suppliers (Tier 1 and Tier 2), commercial vehicle operators, private transport companies and value-added service providers; (ii) the public transport and mobility sector, that covers regional planning organisations, public transport planning agencies, and local government; and (iii) solution providers which may be SMEs, start-up and spin-off companies, big industrial players, technological institutes, or research organisations.
The overall concept focus of the ENTRANCE project lies in the “supply-demand-finance” triangle that is envisaged for all transport and mobility modes and all relevant stakeholders as may be seen in the figure below. Each of the vertices of this triangle is defined as follows:
- Supply: Organisations that can provide first-of-a-kind and near-to-market transport and mobility solutions (technologies, products and/or services).
- Demand: Potential buyers among the main public and private actors of the transport and mobility sector that are expected to have foreseen replacement or purchase plans and schedules.
- Finance: Public and private organisations that provide different funding programmes for innovation in the transport sector, including private investors, and public funding instruments such as for example the European Innovation Council (EIC), Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and the equity instruments and debt instruments (and relevant hybrids and blends).
The ENTRANCE concept focus
To reach the project objectives and implement the described concept, ENTRANCE has created the ARRIVAL Matchmaking accelerator funnel workflow. A funnel workflow has for years shown to be effective for online services and therefore ENTRANCE will centre it around the ARRIVAL Matchmaking Platform, which was created and launched in September 2021. The following figure shows the ENTRANCE Matchmaking accelerator funnel and its relation to the project’s work packages and implementation plan.
Phase 1, Challenge:
- identifies common interests amongst buyers in a specific innovation area/solution requirement by analysing and clustering challenges and needs through liaison and cross-fertilization activities.
- identifies “supply-demand-finance” stakeholders.
- converts “strangers” into “visitors” of the ENTRANCE website and ARRIVAL platform.
- directly connects to clustering activities with European associations and initiatives in the transport and mobility sector, including the set-up of an Advisory Board
Phase 2, Solutions:
- identifies potential solution providers by mapping solutions in the current market using open calls and offline interactions with stakeholders.
- converts simple “visitors” of the platform into potential collaboration “leads” for the uptake and upscaling of innovative transport and mobility solutions.
Phase 3, Matchmaking:
- serves to organise matchmaking between buyers and solution providers arranged through brokerage events for the ARRIVAL platform users to leverage the achievements of the automatic matchmaking done by the matchmaking platform and ensures one-to-one networking opportunities between the solution providers, potential buyers and investors that can lead to potential investment and commercial partnerships deals.
- organises workshops to enhance the business development capacity of the stakeholders.
- ensures there is continuous interest drawn towards ARRIVAL.
- ensures high-quality platform content.
- actively involves the users in sharing knowledge and solutions, and replacement plans or financing opportunities, on the ARRIVAL matchmaking platform
Phase 4, Funding:
- identifies funding opportunities for buyers and solution providers through training events, innovation finance support services, ENTRANCE secretariat and liaison activities with potential investors and financing organisations.
- organises webinars to present the relevant European funding programmes in collaboration with the funding authorities.
- provides an individualised and personalised innovation finance service in order to lower the barriers to access to finance of solution providers and buyers. This is directly linked to the finance vertex of the ENTRANCE concept triangle.
Phase 5, Support:
- supports joint uptake through purchase aggregation orchestration for private solution providers and liaison with public procurement initiatives for public buyers. This is done through the neutral trustee for purchase aggregation orchestration to ensure a fair negotiation of the risk-, cost-, and gain-sharing mechanisms between the collaboration stakeholders, and thereby lowering the cost and subsequently the risk of innovative solutions.
- supports the promotion of best practices in the deployment of innovative solutions.
- gives an overview of existing legal frameworks.
- offers an offline contact point to provide individual guidance and advice on the project activities in general and on European funding programmes.
- converts the “leads” into real “innovators”.
- disseminates the results of the project.
- defines and implements communication and dissemination strategies and activities.
- creates awareness of the ENTRANCE project.
- disseminates the project’s results to a large community of users from key stakeholders to the public at large.
- defines the exploitation strategy and the sustainability plan for the maintenance of the ENTRANCE offered services after the project’s end.
- converts “innovators” into active “promoters” of the use of the platform and possible coaches for others.
The impacts of the strategy will be:
- involvement of more buyers.
- clarity and access to a streamlined market overview of innovative solutions.
- mobilise financial resources to accelerate market access and upscaling.
- lower the risks involved in the acquisition of innovative products and services.
