FTI Cocoon was submitted under in the second cut-off of the new Horizon 2020 “Fast Track to Innovation Pilot” programme, a new call inside the research and innovation framework of the European Commission aimed towards accelerating the introduction of innovative ideas to the market.
During the first year, the European Commission has awarded € 32.7 million to 15 innovative projects, involving 67 partners in 15 countries to help speed up their access to the market. The competition was serious, shown by the very low success rate of 6.6%.
“The projects include designing a scooping device for fighting forest fires by air, bringing the recovery and reuse of plastic waste from photovoltaic panels to an industrial scale, developing a novel diagnostic to make a better use of antibiotics, making a mobile 3D-scanner for forensic data and building an exoskeleton to rehabilitate patients with spinal cord or brain injury”.
FTI Cocoon (under Grant Agreement nº 700615) involves the optimization of the production line of the Cocoon, an innovative biodegradable water reservoir to be applied in efficient landscape-scale ecosystem restoration plans. The EU contribution amounts to a total of 1,065,312.50€, while partners co-finance the rest of the project’s actions. The pilot will be carried out alongside FGW Fasergusswerk Polenz GmbH (the leader of the project and current manufacturer of the Cocoon) and Land Life Company (the company behind the innovative product and its design).
The project will start in February 2016 and will last a total of 20 months, during which implementation will take place in Netherlands, Germany and Spain.
To find out more about the programme and other beneficiaries during 2015, click here.