DIHs could offer a marketplace and play the role of a broker facilitating cooperation and networking among important stakeholders, harmonizing companies with customers and providing European connections as well. In this framework, DIHs express an increasing need for having platforms bolstering users-producers transactions, fostering to detect what is needed, by grouping a large variety of services and goods together. This paper presents the main platforms grounded on the D-BEST reference model developed by different networks of DIHs. The main characteristics of each of them have been detected and the differences among them unveiled.
The relevance of digitalization and the advantages it can produce in the EU socioeconomic context
has been widely analyzed and emphasized nowadays [
Hence, European DIHs (EDIHs) [9] and DIHs could ease the process of bringing together industry and administrations requiring innovative digital solutions, with key companies offering these solutions (or able to develop them) [10, 11].
DIHs could offer a marketplace and play the role of a broker bolstering collaboration and
networking among important stakeholders, harmonizing firms with customers and providing
European connections as well [12,13]. In this framework, DIHs express an increasing need for having
platforms bolstering users-producers transactions, fostering to detect what is needed, by grouping a
large variety of services and goods together. In addition, it is important the collaboration with other
DIHs at EU level to build a pan-European network of networks where it is possible to meet,
give-andtake, collaborate, get know-how, enhance competences and skills, and detect the lacking capabilities
that can be obtained from other European DIHs [14, 15]. A first attempt was made by the European
Commission (EC) with the development of the S3 platform [12] where the services offered by the
DIHs registered on the platform were categorized. Then, several DIH networks, often funded by the
EC actions as innovation action projects, developed digital platforms [
The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents the research context (introducing the DBEST and DIHIWARE), Section 3 the results obtained and Section 4 their discussion. Finally, Section 5 concludes the paper and lists further research.
DIH are described as support facilities that support companies to enhance their competitiveness through innovations, bolstering the development and adoption of latest digital technologies [22] and a set of services to support SMEs' digital transition [23]. A reference model to categorize these services is the D-BEST, composed of five macro-classes of services [14, 15, 24]: Data, Business, Ecosystem, Skills, Technology.
The DIHIWARE Platform is a solution created within the MIDIH project [25] and currently employed in different ecosystems in Europe. It provides a collaboration environment grounded on the Enterprise Social Software concept, realizing a bridge among stakeholders with different experiences backgrounds, providing access to the up-to-date knowledge and expertise, pulling teams together and supplying a fertile ground for experimentation. These knowledge-driven services are fully integrated with collaborative services to create a digital space where stakeholders can collaborate to boost innovation. The main users of this platform can be reconciled to the following three families (Manufacturing SMEs (demand); Technology SMEs (offer); DIH (broker)).
This section is aimed at providing the main features of the platforms grounded on the D-BEST model developed by different networks of DIHs. 3.1.
So far, the DIHIWARE platform has been instantiated in several projects (as the collaborative portal for their ecosystems) and in combining several communities together (DIH4INDUSTRY) to exploit synergies among different initiatives.
The AI REGIO project proposes a platform to enable cross-collaboration inside its two main communities: DIHs and Didactic Factories (DF). DIHs have at disposal the Service Marketplace section to manage their portfolios of services according to the D-BEST taxonomy, as well as the catalogue of their Experiments and a collection of operational technologies, data analytics tools and platforms, designed to provide support to system integrators and technology adopters. DF have at disposal the Service Marketplace where their services are showcased following the DR-BEST taxonomy (where the “R”, specific for DFs, stands for Remote).
The DIH4AI platform is tailored for the needs of DIHs acting for the development and adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions. The marketplace is shaped according to the L-BEST taxonomy: “L” stands for “Legal and ethical” and displays all the services fitting with the request of preventing the risks deriving for AI adoption.
The HUBCAP collaboration environment delivers both “Access to” and “Collaborate with” services, not only offering access to up-to-date knowledge, expertise and technology but also providing MBD assets for testing and experimenting. In particular, HUBCAP has two catalogues of MBD assets (models and tools) usable through a sandbox by industrial players, technical developers, and decision makers [13].
On top of the aforementioned examples of collaborative portals at project-level, the DIHI4INDUSTRY platform has been conceived at Network-level to piece together several communities of DIHs active in the Digital Transformation of European Manufacturing Industry, encompassing hubs with different specialisations and expertise, coming from different projects, and it aims at representing a single access point for DIH practitioners and policy makers. The platform presents the DIHs communities and Service Marketplace, as well as the catalogue of Experiments and success stories deriving from the implementation/provision of their services. 3.2.
DIH4CPS platform’s users can be service provider and/or service consumer. To have such a role, the user should have some prerequisite competences (i.e., the needed competences related to a given service or activity, grouped under the D-BEST model) needing a proficiency level in a given domain (the competence area). The interface has been developed for the core network services, both for the ontology navigation (to help users to find the right partners for experiments/development tasks) and for managing the network model/ontology (allowing to enrol new DIHs and alter the model).
This paper presented the main platforms grounded on the D-BEST model developed by different DIH networks. The main characteristics of each of them have been detected and the differences among them unveiled. The paper has some limitations, being focused only on the DIH networks developing their platforms grounded on the D-BEST. At the same time, this is a potential point to integrate the platforms based on their similarities and to trigger synergies among the different networks of DIHs.
This work received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under GA No. 872548, 872698, 952003 and 101017057. [9] European Commission, European Digital Innovation Hubs in Digital Europe Programme - Draft working document, 2020. URL: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/activities/edihs. [10] F. Asplund, H. D. Macedo, C. Sassanelli, Problematizing the Service Portfolio of Digital Innovation Hubs, in: Proceedings of the PRO-VE 2021, 2021, pp. 1–9. doi: 10.1007/978-3-03085969-5_40. [11] Digital Innovation Hubs, Mainstreaming Digital Innovation Across All Sectors Final version, 2017. URL: https://s3platform-legacy.jrc.ec.europa.eu/-/digital-innovation-hubs-mainstreamingdigital-innovation-across-all-sectors?inheritRedirect=true. [12] European Commission, Digital Innovation Hubs - Smart Specialisation Platform, 2020. URL: https://s3platform.jrc.ec.europa.eu/digital-innovation-hubs-tool. [13] H. D. Macedo, C. Sassanelli, P. G. Larsen, S. Terzi, Facilitating model-based design of cybermanufacturing systems, Procedia CIRP 104 (2021) 1936-1941. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2021.11.327. [14] C. Sassanelli, H. Panetto, W. Guedria, S. Terzi, G. Doumeingts, Towards a reference model for configuring services portfolio of Digital innovation hubs: the ETBSD model, in: IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2020, PRO-VE 2020, IFIP AICT 598, 2020, pp. 597–607. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-62412-5_49. [15] C. Sassanelli, S. Gusmeroli, S. Terzi, The D-BEST based Digital Innovation Hub customer journeys analysis method: a pilot case, in: 22nd IFIP WG 5.5 Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises, PRO-VE 2021, Saint-Etienne, 2021. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-85969-5_43. [16] European Commission, Digitising European Industry. Reaping the full benefits of a Digital Single Market, 2016. URL: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/communicationdigitising-european-industry-reaping-full-benefits-digital-single-market. [17] DIH4CPS, Fostering DIHs for embedding interoperability in cyber-physical systems of European
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