In today’s rapidly evolving business environment, technological watch has become a critical tool for ensuring the competitiveness and success of companies and research organisations. By monitoring the latest technological advancements, market trends, and innovations, organisations can make agile and informed decisions. For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in traditional manufacturing industries such as footwear, textiles, and furniture, implementing an effective technology watch system is indispensable to staying ahead in an ever-changing market.
As part of the TECHGROW project, representatives from partner clusters organised a series of specialised workshops on technology watch. These workshops, aimed at training companies, their employees, and other research organisations, introduced innovative tools and methodologies to strengthen participants’ access to up-to-date information and enable the implementation of robust technology watch processes within their organisations.
Building on the outcomes of these workshops and the insights gained through the TECHGROW initiative, project partners have now developed a comprehensive Guide for VET Providers. This new resource offers practical recommendations for vocational education and training organisations seeking to adopt the TECHGROW-developed materials or implement custom training courses on Competitive Intelligence (CI) and Technology Watch (TW). The guide is tailored to support VET providers in adapting these resources to their specific contexts, ensuring their relevance to a wide variety of manufacturing sectors.
The guide draws upon the project’s earlier achievements, including the creation of training materials and virtual TW information platforms customised for three clusters—Furniture, Footwear, and Textiles. It provides clear guidelines for designing and mainstreaming training paths for other sectors beyond those initially targeted by TECHGROW.
The project consortium validated these training paths and concepts during stakeholder workshops, demonstrating their applicability across various manufacturing sectors. The guide therefore offers a foundation for diverging from the existing cluster-specific materials and creating new training programmes that leverage the knowledge and tools developed within the TECHGROW project.
This significant outcome aligns with the TECHGROW project’s vision of expanding access to technology watch training and fostering innovation across traditional industry sectors. VET providers, manufacturers, and other stakeholders are encouraged to explore how the TECHGROW guide can help create tailored training solutions to meet their sector’s specific needs.
Complete guide:
