The S3FOOD consortium performed a mapping exercise in the involved regions, resulting in a structured, concise summary of the typical needs and challenges of the food industry as well as an overview of smart sensor systems and other IoT related solutions together with their enabling functions that have potential for application in the food value chain identified. Next, 4 thematic priorities were defined for all actions in the framework of the S3FOOD project: sensors, integrations, smart data management and connectivity. The involved innovation ecosystem is complex and includes multiple actors with different fields of expertise. As S3FOOD´s mission, and by extension the Thematic Smart Specialization Partnership ‘Smart Sensors 4 Agri-food’, is to create added value for the agri-food SMEs of the ecosystem, the focus was within S3FOOD on innovative and applicable solutions that contribute to the major challenges the agri-food sector is facing. Living Labs play a central role in this ecosystem (Figure 1). Living Labs are innovation driven organizations that facilitate and foster collaborative innovation between the different stakeholders in the industry 4.0 ecosystem to develop, improve, test and validate digital solutions to specific challenges of the agri-food industry. At the core of the network of Living Labs lies the need for cross sectoral collaboration and innovation and creating a trust zone between all the players in the innovation ecosystem will be a key element. Currently, 23 Living Labs have been identified that make up the network of Living Labs. The Operational Handbook of Living Labs (see www.S3FOOD.eu) is set-up as a roadmap on how to further develop this network and clearly describes the ‘what’s in it for whom’ for the different stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem. Furthermore, both a descriptive and interactive technology catalogue were developed, listing relevant technologies and linking them to specific challenges of the food industry. The descriptive technology catalogue was elaborated to be used internally by the S3FOOD partners in support of SMEs via the ask@service and coaching activities. During the S3FOOD implementation period over 500 SME benefitted from coaching and training support via the S3FOOD partners. As part of this support actions, a descriptive Technology Catalogue to be used by the consortium as well as an online interactive technology map is an online tool that can freely be consulted via the S3FOOD website were developed. In 7 study visits were organized as well as 3 cross-border community building events, in order to inspire and connect the food companies as well as technology and digital solutions providers. The main action of S3FOOD were the 2 open calls for innovation vouchers. Both calls combined resulted in + 300 submitted SME projects of which after evaluation 58 granted were granted. These SME projects include 39 Exploration Vouchers, 10 Validation Vouchers and 9 Application Vouchers, supporting in total 75 unique SMEs (Figure 2). The outcomes of these innovation projects have been disseminated via the S3FOOD newsletter and website, the communication channels of all S3FOOD consortium partners as well as during various events organised by S3FOOD. During the final event, an aftermovie was made highlighting the added value of the S3FOOD voucher funding and support to SMEs. At the European Cluster Conference 2022, S3FOOD received the cluster partnership of the year award, which was a great recognition of the work done by the consortium. The outcomes and insights obtained via S3FOOD will be further valorised and exploited via the activities of the S3 partnership ' Smart Sensors 4 AgriFOOD' in future projects.
