hello everyone uh welcome to the event if you're coming in we're going to give it a moment for people to log on so i invite you to be patient for a moment so hmm no you're gonna get promoted in a second okay and then you'll be able to speak okay hello everybody welcome to the canada europe business opportunities for n-gen members i thank you for signing up for this event uh we have a full agenda for you today um we're going to start with some remarks from jason myers rob sinclair and then followed by eu innovation priorities and programs as you can see it's pretty full schedule followed by key market presentations we'll give you five minutes each you can see the various countries we'll be doing there and then we'll be following up with the trade commissioners regional office uh surah and then uh time allotting we will have a q a session at the end i invite you to put your questions at the bottom of the screen you can see uh where uh the q a box uh you can put your questions in there and we will do them at the end uh i want to invite jason myers he's a ceo for nextgen to uh give us a few words and uh go ahead jay thanks very much frank and i just want to say uh welcome to everybody i hope you're uh you're keeping safe um as everyone knows next generation manufacturing canada is the uh advanced manufacturing supercluster for canada a very important part of what we're doing is promoting canadian capabilities but also identifying opportunities for innovation partnerships across canada around the world and business opportunities commercial opportunities for commercializing technology and for uh for finding technology as well that can upgrade the capabilities of of canadian companies so i'm i'm really really looking forward to this to this webinar and i want to thank everybody uh for uh uh who is uh participating today um i have a great uh a great job and uh just happened to know just about everybody who is on this uh this call and i want to thank you all for taking the time to uh to give us a briefing of what is going on uh in europe uh today as i think as everybody is aware uh as we all struggle out of um out of the pandemic and into recovery uh that europe has a great deal to offer the world in terms of advanced manufacturing and i think canada has a a great deal to offer the world and to europe as well in this area uh so really really pleased to have everybody here i'd like to introduce rob sinclair in in particular robs the deputy head of canada's mission to the european union and uh couldn't think of anybody better to kick things off rob thanks jay um good morning good afternoon to everyone it's a real pleasure to be here today uh thank you jay for your role in helping to put this together and i'd also thank fred fournier and stefan lombard and all the my colleagues from the government of canada side who are contributing to to this really great event um obviously we're very pleased to partner with engine on on this webinar discussing business opportunities in in europe canada and europe uh have a rich history of collaboration and you know europe's the largest trading bloc in the world and so it's a priority for us um europe's also at a a real turning point as we all are in our response to uh the covet pandemic it's looking to build back better and it it has several what we could call men on the moon missions to do so uh decarbonizing uh the economy at agriculture and and society and how they're powered boosting connectivity automation and the adoption and use of artificial intelligence and building new or reshoring industries and supply chains in key strategic sectors such as health batteries semiconductors and green technologies and to achieve this europe's looking to partner with trusted partners such as canada on a number of fronts whether in fundamental research technology development and demonstration or through supplier arrangements and business partnerships so in that context uh europe clearly offers a lot of opportunities for canadian companies and one of the things that i always stress when i i participate in in these sorts of events is the the fact that we are so closely aligned on on the values uh side of things we share similar values and we also have a similar objective so we've got an amazing foundation on on which to build and just like canada we're looking at tackling these huge challenges uh such as climate change or or recovering from covet in a sustainable way for the long-term survival of the planet um we're looking for tangible results that improve the quality of life of our citizens so it's not just the what but it's the how that are so closely aligned that uh really position us well to work with the eu and the proof of that is our comprehensive trade agreement that we have with the eu sita which is in the process of being ratified by member states and that that agreement's a model for many other countries looking to develop the same sort of relationship that we already have with with the eu um ceta provides canada with preferential access as i said to the world's largest trading block in second largest economy um and our second largest trading partner after the u.s so in addition to collaborating on policy development we also work together in many sectors and industries such as digital space agriculture energy aeronautics environment and health just to name a few and our levels of research collaboration are growing as well we have mechanisms for clusters to work better together and our value chains are getting more and more integrated so with that uh you know now is the time i'm i'm the booster in the i'm the deputy head booster for canada eu relations so uh now is the time to uh reach out and really start thinking about europe as your next partner and we're help we're here to help you to do just that so with that over to you thank you very much for those comments uh i invite the frederick fournier he is going to do our next presentation hey yes good morning everyone i have a very long minute and a half uh to tell you what i want to tell you so uh let's get let's get started so uh research and innovation europe just launched its new uh funding program for research and innovation this past month in january 2021. it's called horizon europe and it has a very large budget of 95.5 billion euros this funding program is fully and directly managed by the european commission through its dg research so other than the fact that europe is even more open to international cooperation a key novelty on the horizon europe is the creation of partnerships so the objectives of those 49 partnerships is to bring together partners from different spheres to work on common innovation projects and they also cover all all topics you can you can think of so the partners involved can be european or non-european they can come from industry they can come from universities research organizations public organizations government departments you name it and the added value of those partnerships lies in the fact that they bring together a broad range of different actors looking to solve global challenges with concrete solutions so we're not really talking about research here but solutions that will make an impact on the citizens life and since those challenges are global well there's a there's quite a wide range of them as i mentioned and they are obviously of interest to canada as well so here i'm talking about health climate change cleaner transportation smarter city management sustainable energy production etc so again there's a wide range of sectors europe is interested in collaborating with with canada another interesting um option for canadian cluster members is to partner with europe through the cluster collaboration platform that platform is web-based it is maintained and managed directly by the commission this time through its dg grow so dg grow is the equivalent of i said their focus is really to develop the european smes so the domestic objective of the eccp platform is to support european clusters in the development of their networks locally and internationally and their ecosystem so for canadians what's interesting is that since 2018 i said as an mou with egrow to promote the cluster to cluster collaboration so this means that this platform the eccp platform can be used by european clusters to connect directly with international partners including canadians currently there's 11 clusters in europe that that are interested in targeting directly canadian canadian partners and in a different number of sectors so there's a list on the slide here a list of sectors and those are the priority sectors that europe is looking at is looking for partners for you also have a link on the slide that link will lead you to the actual platform the database is searchable so it's easy for anyone to find out which european cluster is interested in working with canada and if you need assistance please let me know do not hesitate to contact me directly we're there to help thank you thank you for the i would invite uh wolfgang witkey i just mentioned we will be making this side deck available afterwards i'll mention that a little later uh wolfgang we bonjour hello everybody good morning good afternoon depending where you are um my name is wolfgang vitke and i'm working for an organization hi jay a very good friend of us i'm working for an organization which is called eureka about which you will hear now a little bit and i will first present you what this organization is and that's more or less and then my canadian colony colleague melanie will present you what canada is doing in this environment eureka is an intergovernmental global network which means it is a network of basically funding bodies which belong to governments these funding bodies are coming today from 45 countries so it is officially located with its office in europe but it has 45 countries around the world which are members now singapore will joining will be joining this year and there are most likely two additional western balkan countries which will also become full members this year so it's a global network of funding bodies where each country finances its own participants to do different type of research and very close to market innovation projects if i could have the next slide please you see the reach out of this network and this network has different what we would call instruments or you could call it funding programs to which the different countries participate you will learn about this in more detail when the canadian colleague will speak about the canadian engagement but to broadly give you an idea what these four examples of programs or funding lines that i have proposed are we have cluster projects these are large scale projects with consortia of five to ten different organizations from different countries and where a lot of big companies are involved we have the classical network projects which are projects that at any time can be proposed bottom up between two organizations from two different countries and are often a little bit smaller projects for compared to cluster projects then we have a third line which is called eurostars projects these are projects which are very much uh devoted to the smes and the smes are in the lead of these projects sometimes jointly with some research performing organizations all these projects are cross-border projects what we are talking about so at least two organizations from two different countries so for example one canadian sme and one european sme and maybe a canadian or a european research performer depending on the composition of that consortium and finally the fourth and last major action lineup program of eureka is global stars and these are projects created on the basis with one specific country around the world for example we may decide to do a call for projects with japan japan is not a member of the network but we may enable the members to do projects with japan so each country can contribute to a specific call which could be even on a specific topic where each of the projects would have one japanese partner and one partner from anywhere in the network from any country which is entire willing to put money into such a call on the next you will see a little bit an overview on the main technological areas in which our projects are running you see it's very technology oriented clearly ict and telecommunication is number one but also biological science and the bioeconomy is a very important area similar to ict and then you see a third important area is related to industrial manufacturing material transport and enery energy research in my last slide the next one you see a little bit what concerns smes what are typical examples of small companies and how do they participate in the eurostars program which i just presented small businesses what you can maybe retain as one of the most important items is that more or less one-third is the success rate so one out of three submitted projects are selected and financed you see the dimension of the program the public funding is more than 600 million uh euro over seven years we are talking here now from 2014 to 20 we are not fully at the end of the program you see that about 3500 applications have been received nearly a thousand have been granted money you see that 10 000 applicants have submitted and about 3 000 are in the project so one out of three consortia is successful and the typical smes what do they do they are less than 50 employees more or less half of their work is dealing with research and innovation and you see how they co how they are participating in such a program this is the overview of what eureka is and i would like now to hand over back to your canadian colleague to present the canadian stands on eureka thank you for your attention great good morning and and thank you for the invitation to participate um so i'm melanie collins with the national research council of canada um the nrc has a national footprint and more recently an international footprint including a presence in in munich we essentially have two core functions one is performing research and development and the second is working to support high growth potential innovative smes through advice networking and funding next slide please um so irap is seeking to help grow canadian smes um more recently we have taken on a bigger focus on international and what that means for us is really working with smes to help them to accelerate their access to international markets and global value chains through co-innovation okay so so working into those global value chains and markets we provide two core services related to that one is working very closely with global affairs canada on bringing together potential partners for co-innovation projects so we're convening different players working through eureka working through other instruments such as the canadian international innovation program with global affairs canada and administering the can export program so so once again across the board with that two key things are the partnering opportunities we can offer when you're looking for a partner and then secondly support putting in place co-innovation projects and sometimes the funding related to that next slide please um so with respect to eureka you've heard from wolfgang already on what eureka offers um we are still relatively new in this game we joined in 2012 canada joint canada has a national membership an associate membership into eureka which means that any canadian innovator has the opportunity to participate in a project in an eligible project our main focus is on supporting smes but we do keep a door open for any large firms universities and others that may wish to participate so since 2012 we have supported over 163 projects under eureka and they're worth about 400 million euros so within this there's an opportunity by engaging in co-innovation to reach out to new partners new networks secure market intelligence business intelligence as well as in many cases direct linkages into co-innovation projects and future markets um our key partners to date have been germany the uk france spain and others but eureka of course opens doors to well over 40 economies um so i think on on this next slide please i'd just like to highlight a few of the areas where we've been most active from a canadian perspective and currently we're working on network projects they've already been highlighted to you by wolfgang but i would just say in this it's very much a bottom-up tool and network projects are open at any point in the year for consideration eurostars run in a similar manner a bottom-up non-sectorally focused uh open competition for uh for co-innovation projects they have two calls a year one of the main differences with eurostars and network projects would be different participants from different countries and different types of funding rules so on those what i would say is get in touch with us and we can help you to navigate for the right tool for you the third one that i want to spend a moment on are eureka clusters now these are different than geographic clusters they're of course really supply chain actors coming together across a number of different countries on thematics that are of interest to them and they convene each year the different members of their community and it's industry-led with large firms small firms universities and research institutes coming to the table to look at larger longer term projects and here we are also taking on a role from a canadian perspective there we are active in a number of different eureka clusters and and we've been continuing to look at new ways of working with the clusters including inter-cluster calls on different thematics so here again i i think just to wrap up in a short time frame um i would really encourage anyone who is interested in looking at engaging through co-innovation to get in touch and we can walk through all the intricacies of of eureka the different opportunities and help you to navigate and meet meet partners through our convening events thank you thank you melanie uh we're going to go on to the key market presentations and we are going to start with uh stefan champano and austria stefan stefan are you there okay can you hear me now yeah no problem go ahead good good sorry to get all my my my things in a row all right so um austria um not the biggest market to uh to start with but um if we are the market where uh your niche is and your partner is then we're the only market that you need um austrians um businesses have our leaders in industrial machinery often as i said in niche areas uh very much like the german model they will make these widgets or things in small uh towns but they make the best in the world for what they're doing and so those companies are important and they're big exporters and big researchers austria has been very active in eu horizon projects with canadian partners and in fact the austrian wage uh research agency is chairing the eureka uh program for 2020 and 2021 and we have good contacts with them um verstappen from from nintz is a austrian company who's actually an engine member i'm pleased to find out um we're a small team at the embassy three trade commissioners and myself um so we do really focus on niches where austria leads or austrian companies lead often um with better technology than what we find in canada so we're often the the dhamma in in this relationship um but also uh areas where we see great potential with canada so in automotive in in case um in hydrogen wood construction and green building those are the four issues that we work the most in really we see the most potential for partnerships um so we're happy to work with you uh on opportunities if you know that your niche your area or your partner would be an austrian company do get in touch with us uh and uh we'll be happy to work with you on that thanks thank you uh next is uh belgium and i invite uh michelle garland michelle thank you mercier belgique well also not the next biggest country i will argue it's probably the most centrally located in europe uh belgium is a small open economy here in europe highly depend upon dependent upon exports eighty percent of the gdp in belgium comes from exports so the belgians know what they're doing when they are exporting maine exports are in chemicals vehicles and transport and machinery and equipment and some of the large sectors here are also the chemical and the food processing industry belgium has the second largest port in europe which has led it to be a significant logistics hub and it's attracted the big name distributors in manufacturers who are seeking access to you know eu's largest markets such as france and belgium and germany and belgium is right in the middle of that which brings me to uh probably one of belgium's biggest assets is its central location within a 750 kilometer range is uh over 250 million consumers and 60 of europe's purchasing power so it's well set up for that if we look at the next slide uh we look a little bit closer at the manufacturing industry belgium has traded has always been a manufacturing country and they have been one of the strongest growers of industrial manufacturing output when you compare them to other eu member states and as well looking at it at a g20 context and there's a few reasons for this one was there was the switch of belgium manufacturing towards smart manufacturing they were hailed as early adopters of innovation and integration two they have a strong focus on an investment on r d in the sector both at a federal level and a regional level and that includes everything from tax incentives to direct government funding which has really helped grow the industry and transition it and the third is the strong ecosystem to support industry and as well as academic academia which has been backed by uh progressive policies designed to support the industry so if i look at take a quick look at one of those uh if we look at flanders which is where canada most of canada's trading investment comes from there is a program called made different and they have a budget of 20 million euros a year access to 10 specialized universities within belgium focused on advanced manufacturing and over 300 researchers who help manufacturers transition to be a factory of the future and that's quite substantial when you think there's only a population of 11 million in belgium once these companies have have switched and made this transition they can apply to be a factory of the future and this is a concept which has become very popular here in belgium and is now being ruled out through europe uh jay myers was one of the keynote speakers at a factory of future event um and what it does is it takes manufacturing companies through the uh the rigorous process to show their investment in smart processes digitization employees energy and materials among others and they can win uh the prestigious title of being a factory of the future and once they get this title it gives them a sense of uh you know commitment and investment that they've made to be you know one of the best in manufacturing it's in its seventh year the program uh there's 38 factories of the future in belgium now so these 38 companies have invested over 1.7 billion to upgrade their processes and have created an average 17 percent more jobs this factory of the future concept is being rolled out through europe france netherlands germany denmark italy spain poland and slovenia so you can expect to see much more of this uh accreditation system coming into europe my last point uh on the on this is sita um through sita which was alluded to earlier canadians can have tariff-free exports to to europe and this can be a huge differential for a canadian firm so depending upon your product or technology you could be saving up to 14 for example on electric parts or equipment or up to eight percent in the medical device and equipment sector so if you compare yourself as a canadian exporter to a u.s exporter you may be able to have a price advantage of up to 8 or 14 which could be very appealing to a belgian importer or a european importer so to conclude uh we're a small team here in belgium small but adaptable adaptable and i encourage you to think of belgium as a soft landing into europe it's more forgiving than some of the larger neighbors more competitive france and germany but here you'll get a seasoned exporter partner and that can take you into the rest of europe please do not hesitate to contact us if we can help you come into our market thank you uh next we are going to uh do germany and i invite uh show and thorsten henke i think jasmine you're going to start um no it's uh we decided that i would start okay sorry about it okay uh yeah my name is thorsten i've been with the trade commissioner service for more than 20 years um first i think it's there's not much to say about germany being still the european powerhouse with respect to manufacturing and the production sector over the last 10 years or so the producing sector without the construction portfolio has been accounting for about 22 of the entire value creation um that's about seven points more than the european average being around 15 percent um about two years ago germany adopted a high-tech strategy uh with an um enormous um part of ai this ai initiative was propped up last summer uh when the government and the industry added another two euro bill to 2 billion euro particularly to improve g5 and also develop a g6 over the next four or five years or so um the ai strategy was updated a few weeks ago included some adjustment measures such as corbit related staff climate protection sustainability but also general european and global networking basically the three main industries and industry associations behind these developments are the zvei which is the electronics and electrical engineering association of germany second the bitcom the ict and ict security industry in germany and third the largest association vdma the association for mechanical and plant engineering was about 6500 members look um at the right side of the slide shows that the situation there's lots of dynamism and dynamics in this [Music] portfolio um particularly germany has seen an enormous growth of ai startups over the last three years particularly a 62 percent increase between 18 and 19 and despite go with another 15 about between 19 and 20. germany is of course a traditional and large country known for trade shows and for advanced manufacturing industrial machinery it's particularly the hanover messe followed by automatica in munich but there are a couple of other shows like druva for printing industry in dusseldorf k for plastics fakuma in the southwestern part for logistics and material handling and it's important in germany to know that a number of larger companies have developed their proprietary solutions but they're also looking for add-ons because they're steering towards uh also developing ai and industry 4.0 as new business models within their own companies um over to you thank you dorsen i think uh perfect pickup from there what i want to focus on is just briefly to tell you about germany as a perfect partner for canada on the co-innovation side we've got a number of programs going on uh that we can talk about uh it has been quite successful here between nrc iraq and the german partner uh and uh on on different uh uh levels so this is something that uh if you're considering i would love you to to see you here and i think the the few statistics and things i want to point out to you uh that you may want to consider uh when you're thinking of germany um for instance germany is spending uh three percent of its gdp on r d uh so you should look at the statistics and look at how it compares to uh other countries in the world and i'll tell you that canada we're at a 1.72 of our gdp and what is important about germany is that a a very significant number 30 40 percent of this it's actually invested by the private sector so the total expenditure of germany uh in rne in relation to europe is actually about 30 percent based on the 28 eu states so really it's it's it's it's quite impressive when you're looking at r d activities which bring me to um uh the point of uh i want to talk about this really thing that emerged and was developed here industry 4.0 and and i think what's important to understand when i look at this it's actually i try to define this as as an experiment uh it's really not done uh siemens has a perspective on this festo didactics as an approach uh you had kuka robotics he had a lot of companies being involved in this and they're all looking for different type of solutions so if you have technologies uh that are uh uh able to bring in uh some more intelligence and uh and making this happen in terms of uh sensors or or other kind of activities that's very key a few characteristics uh that are very key to german success but i think it's also an advantage uh for canada working with germany if you look at here they have very strong uh integration between their uh their applied research institute and the technical universities so for fraunhofer for most of you have heard over 75 77 institutes uh all the directors of front offer institute are also professors at universities and they actually are into these technical universities so they really keep this kind of a flow of innovation going and one of the thing that uh to mention is that dual education uh that really is a trademark of germany uh they choose very early those who are going to go to universities and who are going to go to uh technical universities or technical uh trade trades uh i mean there are certainly answers uh questions too that we to be raised there but this is part of the of the model that makes them uh quite successful uh clusters is another aspect they've been uh like us but they've been at it for about 20 25 years so german india has been in clusters uh supporting customers for over i would say 20 years 25 years so long areas of that of activities and the important part is that it's super into the value chains with fr is super integrated like on the obviously on the aviation sector with airbus which is a german uh french company but right now alstom was also bought bombardier as you uh know or is in the process of buying uh well the acquisition is finished so all the the manufacturing when it comes to trail and train uh also will be kind of co-share between friends in germany but also a bunch of integration with other like with austria here uh uh with uh a czech republic with the new uh with belgium so overall i would finish to say that i think for you if you're in this field of innovation wanted to be part of bringing new service and product and solution germany is a good base uh for you as you're really able to uh come on board and really target uh these neighboring markets with which uh uh germany has a very strong integration so i'll stop there and uh we would love to be able to uh to chat with you uh from whatever your interests are more on the commercial or more on the communication point thank you i'd invite semina she's going to present the netherlands thank you frank and uh welcome to the netherlands everybody there's just over 17 million people that live here it's a small country geographically uh internationally oriented with uh global impact definitely punches above its weight and it's number five on the global innovation index from 2020. it's a key trade investment and innovation partner for canada and bilateral trade has been increasing in the last few years since the application of sita it's got a central and uh strategic location it's part of the benelux gateway to europe the port of rotterdam and the amsterdam airport are are part of the the excellent logistics and transportation infrastructure there's an international business climate english is widely spoken and a similar business culture to canada industry 4.0 here is known as smart industry and in 2018 the dutch government launched the smart industry implementation agenda aiming to have the most flexible and digitally connected production network in europe by 2021 and the government's categorized all technological or smart solutions for manufacturing as high-tech systems and materials and it's one of nine top sectors that the dutch government has identified as as particularly strong and it stimulates cooperation between companies and knowledge institutes to drive innovation and competitiveness so these top sectors are similar to the canadian super clusters and hdsm it's divided into 17 sub sectors i won't go through all of them a few of them include healthcare automotive and photonics and holland high tech was created to assist the top sector with creating more public private partnerships get more companies involved in the industry and give information on funding and research opportunities and it's oriented around five themes which are climate sustainability health security and mobility now the dutch are strong in a number of areas including semiconductors smart energy smart health robotic surgery smart mobility uh aerospace materials and agritech and you can see some of the uh the leading companies on the slide there and the advanced manufacturing industry it's pioneering a variety of technology including robotics ai 3d printing iot and big data and the dutch that have a strong digital infrastructure as well as a strong collaboration tradition in clusters and networks and there are a number of clusters here that range from agri-food to chemical to logistics sustainable energy and high-tech and those clusters give an overview of the key players in the sector which may help canadian companies and organizations identify potential partners and at the embassy we see some opportunities to cooperate on themes such as semiconductors and photonics smart mobility composites and medical manufacturing to name a few um now i just wanted to say a few words about some of these uh these clusters um the first one being brain port hindhoven so that's a technology region in the southern part of the netherlands it's home of philips and there you can find uh what's called the high tech campus it's a it's a it's an area where companies and researchers are developing future technologies and products they call they call it the smartest square kilometer in europe and uh in that region there's also a recent innovation project called digital factory of the future which is allowing manufacturing companies to experiment with new technology uh and sharing data between the company and outside into the supply chain so the next slide please there's a highly collaborative dutch life sciences and health cluster working on medical manufacturing innovations including solutions to covet 19. and automotive i'd mentioned it's one of the sub-sectors of the htsm top sector it prioritizes prior powertrains and solutions and components for smart mobility uh with strong players and navigation and localization there's also what's called the automotive campus that's in that brainport region and it's the former volvo nedcar development center and there they work on on turning innovation into uh into business now in order to develop and test and implement the smart industry solutions the dutch have created more than 40 field labs and including one in 3d medical which is for digitization of surgery they also have pilot plants which are a testing ground for new technologies and we heard at the beginning of the webinar about european platforms uh the dutch are active in a number of them such as the urea excuse me eureka clusters ita and uh and penta and we heard that canada is an associate member so it's uh it's good to know your nrc ira ita we've mentioned a couple of events that are virtual you can contact us for more information including the the hannover messe uh next door in germany which usually attracts uh a significant dutch participation i also wanted to mention um for those that may be in cyber security the embassy has a soft landing program by which companies can touch test out the dutch market by virtually landing at uh the hague security delta and we also have a couple of market reports that might be of interest we did one recently on agritech and we're working on one in agree robotics so um if there was anything in uh in the last two slides that uh that caught your interest and you'd like more information please get in touch about potential partners programs and for market intelligence thank you thank you for that uh i'd invite uh michael wilmot he's going to present the nordic countries michael thank you and welcome everyone to the nordics so pleased to talk to you about uh the nordic countries here uh we're talking about five countries in northern europe um and i guess common features of all of them are open pro trade economies um all have free trade agreements with canada uh denmark sweden and finland of course by virtue of sita which they are among the first countries to ratify but norway and iceland also have free trade agreements with canada through the efta agreement which was came to force a number of years before then and norway and iceland are also closely integrated into eu pro eu common market new program so that's helpful as well uh they are competitive and well connected uh markets uh with a strong focus on innovation uh and and but it's bolstered by their social democratic model everyone's heard of the the famous nordic social programs one important benefit of this is that it allows uh employees and companies to focus on on their careers on their on their innovation and frees them up from being being tied down in terms of uh tied to certain employment or and being concerned about the social security net or being unable to access education and that's driving a lot of the uh innovative model and then from that also de-risks innovation in terms of how uh nordic companies and and their employees and their talent approach innovation they're also very collaborative and that's worn out in a number of ways notably the eu and multilateral programs that you've heard about already working with canada a number of horizon 2020 projects and soon horizon europe projects also under eureka as you've heard about even just recently there's a number of multilateral calls in which canada and at least one other nordic country participated including in clean energy advanced materials some specific to covet 19 technologies and electronic components and they themselves amongst the five of them have a nordic innovation fund that support supports and coordinates innovation projects among uh stakeholders in the five countries as well and that could be an opportunity for canadian funders to participate in as well um but in addition and perhaps more interestingly uh the private sector is very active in open innovation and maintains a lot of uh um accelerated programs first to engage startups in in improving uh value chain technologies some examples where we've seen canadian companies get involved include abb out of sweden with their sinner leap innovation fund which has has a canadian automation startup involved there's also the mobility mobility x lab out of sweden involving big names in the um in telecom and in and in automotive ericsson and volvo you may have heard of them and again they've had a number of canadian companies being pulled into that accelerator uh here in denmark where i'm based uh there's been the vestas circular economy sustainable development goal challenge uh which was a collaboration with us at the embassy to identify uh innovators with um circular economy technology specifically around recycling wind turbine blades materials uh processes for dealing with complex composites and how at end of life and how to recycle them and make usable products and uh we're most of the way through this challenge and already four canadian companies have been shortlisted by vestas uh with the hope that at least two of them will be uh invited to do some sort of innovation collaboration with vestas on this technology and in defense we even have kraken robotics out of newfoundland and labrador specializing in marine subsurface sonar technologies has got a good contract with the danish navy and will be establishing center of excellence to collaborate with danish suppliers in that area as well next slide please so to highlight some of the nordic clusters where we see opportunity for canadian companies amongst us and the the five embassies that we have in the nordic region um starting with automotive um has hinted it with the x mobility accelerator there's big companies like volvo's scania skf in sweden that are there to collaborate with you a broad theme that crosses many sectors and perhaps what nordics are maybe perhaps known for is decarbonization all countries have very aggressive decarbonization targets and that's driving uh their leadership in the sector vestus is a good example of wind but also grundfast and dunfoss out of denmark dealing with district heating and industrial heating and cooling technologies ecuanor the oil and gas sector in um in norway is very much transitioning to carbon capture and storage and you also have northwold alpha level in sweden in defense you have saab um in sweden also noble for their involvement in the f-35 fighter program and potentially a bidder on canada's fighter replacement program but also you have namo out of norway um and finland and also denmark recently announcing significant new investments in arctic capabilities which could be interesting for canadian companies in forestry and mining a lot of focus on sustainability but also next generation products for either critical minerals materials or in the case of the forestry sector fiber technologies for advanced products in med tech and biotech there's the medicon valley alliance between denmark and sweden again looking at a number of new technologies a big focus on virtual and e-health and related technologies for that in terms of improving health care outcomes and of course we have novo nordisk out of denmark nova zymes on the biotechnology side um and getting a in in sweden uh ocean tech is another area where a lot of these company technologies and industrial processes come together norway is is moving forwardness in a big way and this is some of those key clusters where there could be opportunities to collaborate here in denmark we have blue denmark as well and of course shipping giant maersk which is very interested in marine digitization and logistics optimization technologies and more generally with the advanced manufacturing sector you have areas such as robotics and industrial processes we have made the manufacturing academy of denmark here in denmark they're actually a member of the eu cluster collaboration program and visited uh um toronto two years ago when they brought a delegation and they're very keen to collaborate but also out of norway uh some clusters focused on industrial processes and and the pia network in sweden very active in eureka and very interested in collaborating with engine companies so how to engage we have a common email address we can reach any of the nordic offices any of the trade commissioners there so you're welcome to follow up with that after the webinar we have a number of market reports coming out in the coming weeks focus on artificial intelligence for aspiring economy ocean tech arctic defense and financial technologies and also some of our key events coming up uh again mostly virtual that you'll have a chance to participate in or we expect significant nordic participation so again you're welcome to have a look at those and follow up with us if you're interested in participating and that's all i have to say um thanks for your attention and looking forward to working with you thank you very much um on to our final presentation it's the trade commissioner services and i invite sue roth to give that presentation hi sue hi good morning good afternoon all uh thanks for thanks for joining i'm here as kind of an anchor and then and simply a reminder um for engine members uh partners that the trade commissioner service is is what you've heard from our trade commissioners and there is a regional office network available to work with you in real time in canada helping you prepare and offering these services as well as and complimented by the many trade commissioners that you heard from today in our in our european network and so that it's always a possibility for you to reach in to your regional office network depending where you're located your firm in every province there is a regional office there is trade commissioners who will follow with you and help you along providing these services and connecting you to trade commissioners in market many of you might be uh very familiar with our colleague greg rust who works for our ontario regional office and is our official kind of liaison with engine and and probably has helped uh connect you uh on business and innovation uh efforts uh throughout the past years please feel free to call upon him again um his contacts will be at the the end of this um just you know again just reminding and and encouraging that there are lots of um enthusiasm and willingness to make these these connections um we can even i think you know extend the honorary title of trade commissioner to to to melanie wolfgang others who who are there to help facilitate um all all of these connections and work um even if if not part of the formal network there is absolute um desire to see these connections being made and i think that's what you've heard um today uh these are this is the quick overview is the four core services that the trade commissioner service does offer in preparation for international markets that usually happens with us here in the region in canada um that we would help you strategize your business and innovation strategy uh write it down um brainstorm with us submit it to greg myself others um we're great um on uh working with feedback and and and connections and facilitation so please make those connections market potential assessment you've heard again the willingness from from trade commissioners and senior trade commissioners at the various posts their um ability to give you that sense of how how and what kind of resources and connections can be made to help uh for you to find traction uh in in market with partners of all stripes so um make use of that key service as well we also use identified uh identification identification of qualified contacts and this is our ability to be able to make those connections for you warm connections warm referrals either in a mission uh format or individually and as well as commercial problem solving we are there to to lean on um not to be involved particularly in in legal or financial disputes but we're able to provide guidance um and support uh through um advocacy so just a reminder again gregory uh greg rust key man key name to know um don't hesitate to reach to greg don't hesitate to to reach to myself or others within the regional office network and we'll be happy to make sure that you have the full uh connection back to the trade commissioner service network writ large thank you sue a great presentation um i'll give a moment i haven't seen any questions come in but i i will offer a moment uh before we close up here uh i just want to say as we mentioned before uh this presentation will be available uh to uh to everybody at the engine website so you can see here on the lower right hand corner it's under the events it'll be under the archive section you just go to the page you'll see uh canada europe and business opportunities just click on that you'll see both the slide presentations and the recording of this event which we will put up in probably a day or so again i'm trying to focus if you have any contacts or any questions for engine you can always email me i'm at frank.balco ngen.ca and uh there's nothing there i think we will close it there thank you everybody oh i think jay has something he'd like to say jay just uh apart from thanking everybody for participating today my question was a very general one as everybody is uh now hopefully recovering from uh pandemic and uh and yet uh i know a lot of companies are still struggling through what that um uh what that actually means i was going to uh just throw it a very general question to everybody about how what do you see uh from the perspective of advanced manufacturing uh here is the uh as the pandemic and the is the recovery slowing down investments in the sector do you see um it actually having the opposite effect and speeding up a lot of the initiatives and that was to no one in particular does anybody want to jump on to that question or comment on that of our speakers presenters little shy it's uh michael in denmark just to quickly say that uh the kobe 19 pandemic has been has been hard on the nordics as everywhere but again because of the focus on advanced manufacturing uh there's been uh perhaps a pivot to operating remotely as much as possible um and also perhaps an appetite for diversification uh again in sectors where the nordics are strong they haven't been hit hard but um their key markets let's say uh in in europe or in asia or even the united states have been hit hard so there's a feeling that if even if they're trying to recover and being export-led they're going to need partners and new opportunities around the world and that's potentially an opportunity for canadian companies who can position themselves as a partner for their nordic partners to consider coming through canada into north america while you might work with them to come through um to come come into europe so that's something to keep in mind thanks mike and maybe i'll just quickly add to that uh from a belgian perspective yes jay things have been uh belgium has been pretty hard hit by covet but what we found is uh the manufacturing sector particularly in the pharmaceuticals has really uh spurred the economy on and uh you know thanks to the investment that they've made in belgium into the the pharmaceutical industry in the biotech at large uh you know belgium has been a has been a hub really here in in europe and a lot of the vaccine that you're getting over in canada is coming from from belgium so that's thanks to the the manufacturing excellence they've been able to scale up and pivot really fast and that's that's down to that ecosystem that i mentioned really strong between government academia research industry and as well for the the logistics hub i think 20 percent of the vaccines coming out are coming via uh belgium right now and to uh into canada and north america thanks michelle i guess i would i would comment uh very briefly on the fairs i mean germany i think uh torsten has mentioned it uh i mean jason we've been here and frank it's it's hard to imagine a big affair i mean it's absolutely humongous medical football so these fairs are certainly trying to find new ways to come and uh online and provide some platforms uh they've been slow i mean they had to cancel a lot of things uh and the experience online that's probably not has been as great so it'll be interesting uh because it doesn't appear that they'll be reconvening uh in a and and it's still being virtually planned for quite a long a bit of time uh but uh very interesting to see uh how they will adjust this certainly is a huge business here and for those who's not attended and i think it's very important i had become a bit uh i started this like fair over the years uh before i came to germany because i found that they were not super useful because there was not a lot of business happening everybody knows that germany the way the model works and they're in their boots and their activities it's it's really technical people people that are there to really work with you and it's really impressive that this is still working it's it's um probably it tells a little bit about the conservatism of the of the uh german market in that regard but uh when it reopens i would certainly encourage you to think about joining uh and networking at uh german affairs because they're they're quite they're quite effective and really good at what they're doing okay that's uh reminds me as well this year the uh the hanover fair uh we'll be going virtual again and uh we'll be um we'll be going out to all of our members with uh ways that you can register uh to participate in the uh in the fair and as well as in the conference thank you jay thank you and just finally let me thank everybody great to see a number of colleagues again number of friends so uh hope everybody stays well and uh and thanks everybody for participating thank you everybody and that will end the presentation for today have a good day bye thank you