Guidebook on technology transfer in the textile, clothing, leather and footwear industries : executive summary

The European light industries innovation and technology (ELIIT) project, funded by the European Union Programme for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (COSME), was initiated to strengthen Europe's textile, clothing, leather and footwear industries and promote the implementation of disruptive technologies. In this sense, the ELIIT Project was directed to highly competitive manufacturing sectors in an attempt to reinforce Europe's strengths and assets in strategic value chains in new technologies. In this context, the TCLF (Textile, Clothing, Leather and Footwear) industries play an important role in the EU economy. ELIIT's general objectives were to identify in the TCLF industries the obstacles behind the gap between innovation/research results and their uptake into the market, and to provide efficient solutions through the development and testing of concrete actions focused on faster market up-take of innovation and its integration in the industrial process. In this sense, the ELIIT programme fostered the cooperation between SMEs from TCLF industries and providers or owners of novel technologies to promote the use of technology-ready solutions to improve productivity, value chain integration, resource efficiency and to create new high-added-value niche-market products and services. In the framework of the ELIIT Programme, a Guidebook on technology transfer process in TCLF industries have been prepared with the relevant information and the best-suited policy actions to foster the market uptake of innovative technology-based solutions by TCLF companies.