An Open Innovation Test Bed (OITB) is a set of entities, providing common access to physical facilities, capabilities and services required for the development, testing and upscaling of nanotechnology and advanced materials in industrial environments. The objective of the Open Innovation Test Beds is to bring nanotechnologies and advanced materials within the reach of companies and users in order to advance from validation in a laboratory (TRL 4) to prototypes in industrial environments (TRL 7).
Open Access in this context means that any interested user, from Europe and beyond, can access the test beds' facilities, capabilities and services independently of whether this user is part of an Open Innovation Test Beds Horizon 2020 consortium or not. Access should be granted at fair conditions and pricing and with transparent and mutual obligations with regards to, for instance, security, safety and intellectual property rights. Users can be individuals, teams and institutions from academia, research organisations, small and medium enterprises and industry, from the public as well as the private sectors.
Via a Single Entry Point, the users would be offered complete and transparent information about the facilities, capabilities and services provided by the Open Innovation Test Bed.