Built4People Innovation Cluster Charter signed by nine clusters at Built4People Stakeholder Forum 2024
Members of the nine B4PICs that signed the B4PIC Charter at the European Convention Center, Luxembourg.
Signing of the charter
On Monday 23 September 2024, nine Prospective Built4People Innovation Clusters (B4PICs) signed the Built4People (B4P) Innovation Cluster Charter as part of a dedicated signing ceremony at the Built4People Stakeholder forum, held at the European Convention Center, Luxembourg.
A B4P Innovation Cluster (B4PIC) is a group of innovation-driven stakeholders from the built environment that engage in a tailored development and maturation process nurtured by the B4P Partnership. Through this process, the cluster aims to expand its geographical reach, cross-sector collaboration, and multidisciplinary expertise, ultimately enhancing the sustainability and impact of its members’ innovations.
The nine B4PICs were supported by the Nebula consortium, each demonstrating their further commitment to the B4PIC network by signing the charter. The B4PICs who signed the charter were as follows:
- Archenerg International Innovative Cluster for Renewable Energy and Building Trade, Hungary
- BUILT CoLAB, Portugal
- Clust-ER BUILD of Emilia-Romagna, Italy
- Construction Industrialization Cluster of Navarre, Spain
- Galicia Construction Cluster, Spain
- Galician Wood and Design Cluster / Cluster da Madeira e o Deseño de Galicia, Spain
- Green Net Finland (GNF), Finland
- Innovation 4 Society, Belgium
- STRESS – Distretto ad Alta Tecnologia per le Costruzioni Sostenibili, Italy
Other network clusters
The first members of the B4PIC Network, Build:INN (Basque Country Construction Cluster) and Odéys (Cluster construction et aménagements durables in Nouvelle-Aquitaine), signed the B4PIC Charter on 18 September 2023, thereby becoming frontrunner B4PICs and confirming their participation in the network. These clusters are collaborating to mobilise innovation in the building and construction sector in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Euskadi Navarra euroregion.
Earlier in September 2024, the B4PIC Network welcomed Novabuild, a new Innovation Cluster from Pays de la Loire, further strengthening the network’s commitment to innovation in the built environment.
Six further clusters from Serbia, France, Italy, Greece, and Bosnia and Herzegovina are scheduled to sign the B4PIC charter by March 2025.
Built4People Partnership, Nebula and STAR*track
The Nebula project has developed a robust maturation process that guides clusters through three stages of maturity, from ‘Prospective’, to ‘Emerging’ and then finally, ‘Established’. By signing the B4PIC Charter, clusters commit to progressing towards the required level of maturity over a specified timeline, developing their cluster status from ‘Emerging’ to ‘Established’.
Once the signed clusters have reached the highest level of defined maturity (by meeting at least two mandatory and one optional ‘success factors’), they will be regarded as an officially ‘Established’ cluster.
The B4P Partnership is a co-programmed public-private partnership within Horizon Europe’s Cluster 5 (climate, energy and mobility). The partnership brings together the European Commission (EC) and two leading associations — ECTP and World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) Europe Regional Network — with a membership base of actors in the built environment.
With €780M (a mix of public and private finance) to fund innovations for the European built environment from 2021–2027, B4P also fosters the establishment of an Innovation Cluster Network. This network is supported by two Coordination and Support Action (CSA) projects, Nebula and STAR*track.
Bridging the Built4People Partnership with the New European Bauhaus (an EU movement for sustainable living), the Nebula project has established a network of Innovation Clusters and offers dedicated support to clusters that have joined the network.
Building upon Nebula’s foundational work, STAR*track aims to expand, strengthen, and support the B4PIC Network and to provide the B4PICs and their members with ICT (Information Computer Technology) tools, access to funding opportunities, and training on sustainable and inclusive development.
Laura Pallares, Head of Europe, WorldGBC, said:
“It was incredibly exciting to witness and celebrate the nine B4PICs signing the Built4People Innovation Cluster Charter. Between them, the clusters represent a diverse array of sustainable innovation across the European built environment. Their collective signing of the charter marks a further step in the Built4People Network’s efforts to catalyse change and galvanise actors of the European architectural landscape into sustainable action.”
Learn more about the B4PIC Network here.
Learn more about Nebula and STAR*track.
