The Industry Associations role is to support their members – Large Enterprises, SMEs, Research and Technology Organisations – to find partners, create consortia and gain access to funding opportunities. AENEAS welcomes all potential members interested in joining a KDT or Xecs project consortium, whether active in the area of micro and nanoelectronics or along the full ECS value chain. There is no membership fee to join AENEAS, and membership brings many other benefits.
Practical support: finding partners, answering calls and getting funding
Besides advocacy, AENEAS helps its members to innovate and grow through a wide range of supporting activities. For instance, members can get advice on which funding instrument is most suitable for them (e.g. Horizon Europe, KDT, Eureka…) and on how to reply to calls. Such advice can be a key success factor in joining or building consortia and in answering calls, especially for SMEs.
AENEAS also co-organizes numerous events to further help members find project partners and present or discover project ideas. These include EFECS, the annual industry forum, and the ECS (now KDT) Brokerage event (free for members). Members have access to the ECS Collaboration Tool, a free platform that provides another way to meet partners and network.
This scale of activities offers advantages for all members, large enterprises and research institutions as well as SMEs. Being part of a collaborative R&D ecosystem is a highly effective way to speed up innovation and economic and societal impact, as well as accelerating business growth. And within publicly funded consortia businesses can share risks, achieve international visibility, gain access to new stakeholders and benefit from public recognition of project outcomes.
Open and equal membership for all
In a spirit of openness to all businesses and research institutions across the electronic components and systems value chain, there is no fee to join AENEAS. Membership is open and equal, with every member getting access to all programmes and funding opportunities. Organisations that successfully join a funded project make a financial contribution to AENEAS in return, which allows it to finance its operations.
This membership model reflects AENEAS’s not-for-profit status as well as its ambition to support the creation of ecosystems, encourage participation of SMEs and stimulate disruptive new ideas. It sees a collaborative approach as vital for the ECS industry to drive European economic competitiveness and to help enable the green and digital transitions.
About AENEAS: https://aeneas-office.org
AENEAS is an Industry Association, established in 2006. The purpose of the association is to promote Research, Development and Innovation (RD&I) in order to strengthen the competitiveness of European industry across the complete Electronics Components and Systems (ECS) value chain. AENEAS provides unparalleled networking opportunities, policy influence & supported access to funding to all types of RD&I participants in the field of micro and nanoelectronics enabled components and systems, and its applications. Partner in ECSEL JU and the new KDT JU, AENEAS is also operating the EUREKA funded Clusters Xecs, PENTA and EURIPIDES².