PBN is the Lead Partner of a new European project called NOTRE, which is focused on supporting the improvement of regional policies related to new product development. The project aims to improve policy instruments that target healthy ageing related innovation and develop testing infrastructures for product validity and relevance.
Concept of the project
The project involves partners from Hungary, Finland, France, Spain, Romania, Italy, and Ireland, with each partner country having a policy instrument in place that supports highly digitalized new product and service development for SMEs. Within the framework of NOTRE, partners will work together to improve their respective policy instruments, based on the example of senior care-related innovation, and will apply a test infrastructure for product validity and relevance.
By exchanging experience and knowledge, the participating regions and countries will innovate their respective policy instruments to include components related to test and validation environment or any additional input gained during the learning phase. Partners include policy institutions, business intermediaries, and health and care sector service providers, all with the goal of applying a strategy for building highly digitalized test and demonstration infrastructures targeting new products and services launched for seniors.
How did we get the idea for the project?
On the one hand, the ageing society is one of the biggest challenges of contemporary life – be it individuals, governments, local communities, or the health-systems. The issue is raising strong concerns in all EU regions, and it is a high priority for all countries and regions. On the other hand, product launches are essential to meet market demand. In 2019, 90.4 million seniors aged 65 years or more represented 20.8% of the EU-27 population. Regions are allocating significant resources to catalyse new products and rejuvenate their manufacturing portfolio. However, bringing new ideas successfully to the market is an enormous challenge. 95% is the probability of failure for new consumer products. Only 40% of the developed products (out of the 5% of the total) reaches the market entry, and only 60% of them generate sales. Only 11% of the new products with sales performance survives 52 weeks. Supporting product ideas in the early phase and ensuring their market validity is therefore a fundamental goal.
Objectives of the project
The objectives to be reached at the end of the project are therefore the following. NOTRE aims to contribute to the exchange of experience and knowledge in setting up and operating test and experimentation environments for seniors' product and service development. It also aims to create a network of internationally connected test facilities and households, enabling a unique, international product validation environment for SMEs and start-ups. Ultimately, NOTRE aims to develop new policy instruments or improve existing ones to help SMEs with more successful new product launches, and to support the improvement of policy instruments targeting healthy ageing related innovation.
NOTRE officially started on March 1
st of 2023 and will last 4 years. This project is led by Pannon Business Network Association in Hungary and is co-funded by the European Union through the Interreg EUROPE program.
