The GALACTICA project, formally titled ‘Smart Industrial innovation as enabler to drive new value chains for textiles and aerospace’, was funded by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme. It ran from September 2020 to February 2023, with a total budget of EUR 5.00 million, fully supported by the EU. The project was coordinated by ASSOCIACIO AGRUPACIO D’EMPRESES INNOVADORES TEXTILS (Spain) and brought together eight partners from Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, France, Belgium, Austria and Portugal. GALACTICA aimed to support the creation of new industrial value chains across the textile, aerospace and advanced manufacturing sectors by fostering cross‑sectoral collaboration, advanced manufacturing and smart industrial innovation, with a strong focus on SMEs. To support this objective, the project implemented cascade funding schemes complemented by coaching, business support, investor connections and collaborative innovation activities, enabling SMEs to explore new cross-sectoral value chains and strengthen their innovation capacity. The project also organised hackathons, matchmaking events, learning expeditions and cross‑fertilisation workshops to stimulate collaboration between textile, aerospace and advanced manufacturing actors. 

A central achievement of GALACTICA was the creation and demonstration of new cross‑sectoral industrial value chains, showing how textile, aerospace and advanced manufacturing technologies can be combined to develop innovative products and services.  

Key achievements of the project include:

• Development and testing of cross‑sectoral innovations: funding of 51 projects involving 82 SMEs from 18 countries resulted in the development of minimum viable products, initial market testing and early‑stage solutions combining textile, aerospace and advanced manufacturing technologies.
• Demonstration of cross‑sectoral value chain applications: supported projects generated concrete outputs across application areas such as circular textiles, smart textiles, lightweight materials and space‑related solutions, illustrating how integration between sectors was achieved in practice.
• Progress towards market uptake and scale-up of SME solutions: several supported SMEs advanced their solutions beyond early development, with projects reaching real‑environment demonstration stages and some securing follow‑up investment and funding.
• Creation of new cross-sectoral collaboration models: supported SMEs established new partnerships across sectors, combining expertise in textiles, advanced materials and industrial technologies to develop integrated value chain solutions. 

GALACTICA contributed to EU objectives on industrial innovation, competitiveness and economic resilience by supporting the creation of new, high‑value industrial value chains across strategic sectors. By focusing on advanced manufacturing, smart industrial systems and cross‑sectoral collaboration, the project supported SMEs move beyond low‑cost, volume‑driven markets towards high‑added‑value products and services. The project also supported EU priorities on digitalisation and sustainability, with a significant share of funded projects addressing circular economy and resource‑efficient solutions. Through cascade funding and scale‑up support, GALACTICA strengthened the innovation capacity of European SMEs and supported their integration into emerging industrial value chains. 

GALACTICA was coordinated by ASSOCIACIO AGRUPACIO D’EMPRESES INNOVADORES TEXTILS (Spain) and implemented through a broad European partnership combining clusters, research and technology organisations, business support entities and investment networks. The project facilitated knowledge exchange between textile, aerospace and advanced manufacturing ecosystems through structured collaboration formats and shared innovation spaces. By bringing together SMEs, large companies, research organisations and investors, GALACTICA enabled cross‑border learning, technology transfer and the development of new partnerships. The project’s also produced best-practice resources, including and exploitation and best-practice guide capturing lessons learned and success factors for managing cascade funding and cross-sectoral innovation projects. GALACTICA’s results, tools and community platform remain available beyond the project’s lifetime, ensuring continued collaboration and knowledge transfer across Europe.