International Metacluster
Network of environmental technologies covering eastern France, the Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate, Luxembourg and Wallonia
- Institution
- Trier University of Applied Sciences, Environmental Campus Birkenfeld
- Location
- Hoppstädten-Weiersbach
- Service
- Co-ordination and design of follow-on project
- Duration
- since 10/2019
International Metacluster
The 12th Summit of the Grande Région (Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate, Grand Est, Wallonia, Luxembourg) recommended the creation of an environmental cluster. The EU-Interreg project “Greater Green” was conceived to implement this political objective. It started in 2016 with a core team of the Environmental Campus Birkenfeld (Hochschule Trier), the Walloon export and innovation agency AWEX, the French region Grand Est, Luxinnovation from Luxembourg and the University for Technology and Economy (htw saar). Targeted are environmental technology networks in the above regions. Greater Green thus links players from the fields of business, research and public administration across national borders.
In an extended constellation of partners, the one-year extension phase ending in December 2020 focuses on making the networking among environmental technology actors a permanent feature of the Grande Région. To achieve this objective, a survey among partner institutions and chambers has been carried out and the following working groups have been established:
- Water
- Sustainable construction
- Plastics
- Smart green energies
The working groups develop specific sectoral approaches for future collaboration in the region; it is also envisaged that a core team should continue to work on information exchange and joint project development – a little bit like a specialised “think-tank”.
From own resources and substantial funding from the Ministry for climate, environment, energy and mobility of the Rhineland-Palatinate, a follow-on project « Greater Green + » is currently under development. New partners and topics such as wood-based construction and microplastics are under discussion, the lead partner this time will be the innovation agency Grand E-nov +.