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Vanguard Initiative: how regions rather than companies drive this network

Networks and Platforms

27 August 2026

Vanguard Initiative: how regions rather than companies drive this network

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The photo presents a close-up of a 3D printer producing a small plastic component, illustrating additive manufacturing.

What sets the Vanguard Initiative apart from most industry networks is its membership: it is regional and national authorities, not individual companies, that join and steer the network, currently more than 30 of them across Europe, working together under the EU's smart specialisation policy.

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Related Organisation(s)

Vanguard Initiative

Topics
Geographical descriptors

EU-27

Organisation Type

Company with 250 or more employees

Cluster Organisations

Regional Authorities

SMEs (a company with less than 250 employees)

  • Advanced Manufacturing Organisation Types

    • Additive manufacturing company

  • Technology areas

    • 3D Printing, Additive manufacturing

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For a manufacturing SME, this means the practical way in is usually through a regional cluster organisation or innovation agency already involved in the Initiative, rather than direct company membership. Regions choose which of the Initiative's thematic pilots to join based on their own industrial strengths, which is how a pilot on high-performance 3D printing ends up drawing in the specific mix of regions that have existing additive-manufacturing capacity, rather than an open call to any interested party.

#VanguardInitiative #AdditiveManufacturing #NetworkAndPlatforms #RegionalPolicy

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