20 years of Textile ETP – a short history and some lessons learned

In December 2004 the European Technology Platform for the Future of Textiles and Clothing, in short Textile ETP or even shorter the ETP, was officially launched. It was the outcome of two processes:

1.???? The realisation by the European Commission that a forum that brings together the key industry and a research players in an industrial sector to jointly develop a Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) for the future of that sector, which EU funding programmes could then selectively support, was a smarter and more efficient way of defining funding priorities than individually and somewhat haphazardly questioning individual experts or organisations about their opinions and needs. It was initially developed in the aerospace industry, which was used to generous public funding for their long-term research and technology development needs, had a habit of working with technology roadmaps for their future aircraft platforms and with Airbus had an example that some kind of top-down politically guided nurturing of industry champions can work. As other sectors saw that EU policy makers started to like the European Technology Platform concept, many jumped on the bandwagon with the result that over 30 different ETPs were created in the 2002-2005 period. The fact that most of them are still around in some form or shape shows that this idea was more than just a fad.

2.???? In 2004, the European Textile and Clothing industry was facing the spectre of the final step of the phase-out of the Multifibre Arrangement (MFA), a system that until then had quota-restricted the imports of textile and clothing products from developing countries into markets such as the EU or the US. That last step, representing almost half of all product groups including the most sensitive ones with the highest volume impact, would on 1 January 2005 open the floodgates to a massive inflow of more cheaply produced garments, mostly from Asia, threatening the survival of many EU textile and garment companies that operated under the protection of the MFA. Seeing this disruption on the horizon, the European Commission in 2004 set up a High Level Group of textile sector experts to devise strategies and policy recommendations to strengthen the competitiveness of the sector. One of the recommendations in the chapter on research and technology was the set-up of a European Technology Platform.

The history of the Textile ETP over the last 20 years can be broadly divided into 3 phases: (1) the stealth phase from launch in late 2004 to 2012 as a non-formalised network operationally integrated into EURATEX, the European Apparel and Textile Confederation, (2) the start-up phase 2013-2018 as a newly created independent legal entity but with limited own operational capacity and relatively static membership (3) the scale-up phase since 2019 with steadily growing operational capacity (human and financial resources), growing membership and a widening suite of activities and services.

Stealth phase – 2004-2012

The springboard of the Textile ETP was the R&D Committee of EURATEX, whose R&D department I was leading at the time. This group met twice a year and was composed of research/technical experts from EURATEX’s national member federations and some heads of textile research centres or university departments delegated by federations that didn’t have their in-house experts. Discussions were mostly broad and unspecific and centred around the opportunities for public support for textile research through EU programmes. Extracting funds from those EU research Framework Programmes (FP’s) was an experts game of mostly scientists who knew how to identify call topics to which to apply, how to write grant proposals so that they would receive high evaluation scores and how to bring in a few willing industry partners that were needed to satisfy the requirements of a collaborative applied research project. The success rates in these competitive calls were reasonable for those ‘in-the-know’, but frustratingly low or random for those without experience or the right contacts. One of the main stumbling blocks was the fact that most call topics were horizontal, meaning non-industry-specific and threw textile projects into competition with projects from other sectors with a more high-tech image which was seen as a disadvantage by many.

The launch of the Textile ETP promised to change this unsatisfactory state of affairs both by bringing in a lot more researchers and industry experts with little expertise in EU programmes (but high hopes) and by the EU defining programme call topics that were exclusively reserved for textile research. Quickly the sleepy R&D committee meetings with often not more than 10-15 participants turned into lively workshops and roundtables of 50+ experts as we launched the preparation of our first Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) in 2005. In the Spring of 2006 more than 300 participants crowded the venue of our first annual conference where the first Textile SRA was presented to the public. During 2005-07 the EU launched several textile-specific call topics resulting in some €100? million of EU research funding benefitting the sector.

The mood remained quite upbeat in textile research while the industry was experiencing the expected post-liberalisation shock losing almost 1 million jobs between 2004 and 2010, mostly in the garment industry and in textile companies supplying EU garment makers. Many companies were trying to reoriented towards higher added value segments in either premium/luxury fashion or more functional or technical textiles, which fuelled demand for knowledge and new technologies.

The great financial crisis of 2008-09 hit all manufacturing and many service industries hard. As a response the EU devised a new research and innovation support instrument – Public-Private Partnerships (PPP). Contrary to ETP’s which would simply inform and inspire EU policy makers about sectoral research needs, in PPPs the private sector stakeholders would directly define together with the European Commission their research priorities and implement them through multi-annual jointly financed programmes. Textile ETP explored the set-up of a dedicated PPP for the textile sector, but was essentially told that the sector lacked critical mass (i.e. political importance) and the technological and financial capacity to merit such a programme.

We were not the only ETP being rejected as PPP candidate and the whole PPP process led to a bit of soul-searching among many ETPs. Those who got a PPP wondered if they should abandon the ETP and put all their eggs into the PPP basket or maintain a double structure (most decided to do the latter). ETPs without a PPP were wondering if the EC would still pay much political attention to them. In a realisation that ETPs were indeed an EU research policy making tool worth retaining, the European Commission in 2012-13 organised a formal validation process of ETPs in which it weeded out some smaller fledgling niche sector operations, but formally validated all those ETP’s that were operating in strategic economic sectors and according to principles aligned with the original concept of European Technology Platforms. Textile ETP was formally recognised as a valid ETP and invited to engage into the shaping of the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme.

One of the questions of the EC’s validation process was the sustainability of ETPs from a legal, governance and operational capacity’s point of view. While some ETPs by then had established a legal entity, many like Textile ETP remained informal networks, hosted in most cases by a sectoral industry federation. After validation by the EC and the prospect of a continued impact on EU research policy making and programme definition, the Board of Textile ETP in March 2013 decided to set up the ETP as a non-profit association under Belgian law.

Start-up phase 2013 – 2018

In April 2013 the Textile ETPs constituting General Assembly took place bringing together 3 founder member organisations: EURATEX, TEXTRANET – the European network of textile research organisations and AUTEX – the Association of Universities for Textiles. These 3 full members which all had to be collective European organisations related to the textile sector jointly financed the organisation at variable shares, delegated members to the Government Board and retained the majority of votes in the General Assembly. In addition, associate members were invited to join the association who could be any Europe-based company or other organisation professionally linked to the textile sector. The organisation’s mission was confirmed as “ensuring long-term competitiveness of the EU Textile & Clothing Industry through collaborative and market-oriented research & innovation.” I was appointed Secretary General, while retaining part-time employment with EURATEX. The ETP had no other employee but benefitted from legal, financial and administrative management support from EURATEX with which it was co-located.

During the following years Textile ETP continued its work with EU research policy makers (with mixed results), published another Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (in 2016) and slowly developed its membership base. Annual conferences and workshops in Brussels brought members together to discuss general textile research and innovation trends, explore EU funding opportunities and share results of completed EU research projects. Every year we also ran our Textile Research Proposal Information Exchange System (TEPPIES) where members that planned to apply for EU research funding and were looking for consortium partners could pitch their project ideas. EU funding opportunities varied from year to year, but in the absence of a textile-specific PPP, most calls would again bring textile proposals in competition with other sectors with correspondingly low success rates.

After 5 years of operation, the ETP had proved that it was viable as an independent entity, that its members remained engaged and membership was slowly growing, but somehow the organisation seemed to not reach its full potential mainly due to a lack of operational resources. Therefore in 2018, the ETP’s Board initiated a strategy process with the support of an external consultant to (1) explore with existing and potential new members the activities and services that would add the most value and (2) to benchmark Textile ETP against other comparable ETPs to identify best practices.

As a result, it was concluded that the ETP should focus on 3 core functions:

-??????? A Strategic Connector, bringing potential research and innovation partners together from across Europe and across the industry and research worlds;

-??????? A Think Tank and provider of insights on textile innovation trends and new technologies emerging across Europe;

-??????? An EU Funding Access Provider, informing and actively connecting researchers and industry developers with public funding opportunities for their collaborative research and innovation projects.

To give the ETP the necessary financial resources to implement a broader range of activities, it was agreed that in addition to membership fees, the ETP may also offer thematic information services to non-members on a subscription basis and engage directly in EU-funded research projects, provided it didn’t compete for those funds with its members.

In late 2018 the new strategy was adopted by the Board. In this process, AUTEX decided to exit full membership, as it felt that its more academic research interests were not well supported by the revised ETP strategy, while two new full member organisations joined. NETFAS – the Network of European Textile and Fashion Universities of Applied Sciences, a collection of more industry-oriented higher education institutions and EU TEXTILE2030 – the association of European Textile Innovation Clusters.

Scale-up Phase 2019+

The new strategy was promptly implemented and quickly led to positive results. In 2019 the first EU-funded project SmartX was acquired and in 2020 thematic non-member subscription services were successfully launched, initially under the name of Masterclasses, later rebranded to Innovation Hubs. As expected, those learning and information sharing programmes in strategic areas such as circularity and biobased materials, smart and technical textiles or digital innovation attracted a great number of non-members and raised the overall profile of the ETP as the place to access information on latest textile research and technology trends, knowledge on who does what and where and an easy way to establish new contacts and collaborations across Europe.

On the back of the EU textile strategy, in 2024 the European Commission agreed to launch a textile-focused PPP entitled Textiles of the Future with first funding calls due in 2025.

Throughout this period ETP membership grew significantly. The Brussels-based ETP team now counts 7 full-time staff members. 3 thematic Innovation Hubs – Circular Biobased Textiles, SmartX for smart and technical textiles and DigitX for digital textile innovation are open to subscribers. Our online members platform hosts several hundred hours of video-recorded expert webinar content, countless downloadable presentations and other technical documents and an experts directory of over 1500 contacts. We also brought together all EU-funded textile research and innovation projects in the ECOSYSTEX Community. Every year 2 large-scale events are organised at different locations across Europe, our annual conference in the spring and the ECOSYSTEX conference in the autumn. Non-members can access information on our website www.textile-platform.eu, subscribe to our monthly public newsletter ‘The Thread’ and follow our active LinkedIn and Youtube channels.

As the flywheel is spinning and our reach and engagement is growing, we still barely scratch the surface of the deep and wide world of textile research and innovation in Europe. Thousands of textile and clothing companies in Europe innovate on a regular basis, but less than 100 are direct ETP members. Relatively few textile machinery, equipment, software, chemicals or technical service providers are active members. While we cover textile-dedicated research institutes and university departments across Europe reasonably well, there are many more research facilities that work with fibre-based materials, surface chemistry, flexible electronics, polymer recycling, bio- and process technologies or study the application of multiple materials including fibres and textiles in a broad range of sector and end markets.

There is a big world out there that we are eager to conquer during the next 20 years of our story. But as we depart on this journey, we will try to stay true to our founding principles and to a few valuable insights and lessons we have learned that I have summarised below.

Operational principles and key lessons learned

1.???? Textile industry competitiveness as guiding star

From the beginning, the mission of Textile ETP was to strengthen the competitiveness of the EU textile and clothing industry through applied research to generate new knowledge and technologies for industrial innovation. Ensuring more public funding to supplement often insufficient internal company resources is surely helpful and was our first priority. But in an industry that is as diverse and organisationally fragmented as the textile industry in Europe, it is equally critical to actively create connections between potential collaboration partners and to ensure that non-confidential information can flow as efficiently as possible through a Europe-wide network. Many smaller companies innovate intermittently and use external partners for key innovation tasks. Established suppliers and local technology centres or consultants can help for incremental innovation, but for expansion into new product categories, end applications or geographical markets, new partners beyond the local network are often needed. The ETP directly or indirectly has seeded many new innovation partnerships across Europe.

2.???? Innovation as the tool, harnessing the power of human ingenuity to generate prosperity

“Innovation is the child or freedom, and the parent of prosperity” writes Matt Ridley. For centuries Europe has provided the freedom to engage in science, engineering and entrepreneurship, allowing textile innovators to come up with amazing materials and technologies that made textile products more functional and massively more affordable. Technological innovation is not the only way to business success and societal progress. But on a continent without rapid demographic or basic consumption growth, without privileged access to many natural resources, with generally high labour costs and with a regulatory framework that forces companies to operate as cleanly and responsibly as possible, creativity and deep technical knowledge provide the best shot at competitiveness. Europe needs to remain the hotbed for textile material and process innovation. From luxury or high-tech textiles that meet the highest customer expectations, to machines and processes that operate at incredible levels of speed, efficiency, accuracy or versatility and business models that create enormous added value. Europe’s textile university departments and technology centres are considered top-notch. Textile ETP will not cease to promote the strategic importance of European textile innovation and celebrate its successes.

3.???? Collaboration as the default

“If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together” says an African proverb, that the ETP fully subscribes to. Textile products are highly complex in terms of chemical composition and mechanical structure. Process specialisation has always been a hallmark of the textile value chain. Hence almost no fully integrated companies from raw material to end product exist in the industry. Consequently, companies that want to innovate need to work with partners. Finding the right partners and effectively collaborating with them is not an easy task. Communicating requirements, aligning incentives, coordinating processes across organisations, protecting IP and other tasks are risky, costly and time-consuming. Initiating collaboration in precompetitive settings such as the ETP’s Innovation Hubs or a publicly funded collaborative research project can reduce risk, speed up processes through more open communication in a trusted environment and lower costs. We can almost guarantee that any ETP member or subscriber that joins our activities with an open mind and collaborative spirit will quickly come away with actionable insights and valuable new contacts to build new collaborations. We are always delighted to harness the power of our network to point our members to sources of knowledge or useful contacts – as long as they ask us. We are less expert at mind-reading.

4.???? The ETP as a community of people

Every organisation is a collection of individual people. And it is people with needs, wishes and desires that make things happen. While it is impossible to speak or otherwise communicate 1-to-1 with every of our over 1500 contacts on a daily basis, we always favour people over process. Modern digital tools including online meetings and webinars allow us to connect with our members regularly and cost-efficiently, but physical conferences and workshops or meet-up’s and guided tours at trade fairs have always been part of our annual calendar. In 2025 we will further intensify it with our new ‘ETP on Tour’ which invites our members to visit and discover research facilities and innovative companies all across Europe.

5.???? Focus on the long term

Innovation, especially in a complex domain such as textiles, is always a long term game. Luckily the textile business is a domain of long-term players. I realised it early on in my career and often heard the quip ‘once in textiles, always in textiles’. I think this is especially true for people involved in research and innovation, because the knowledge, both the hard-coded scientific as well as the tacit experiential know-how, that is needed to be successful cannot be acquired overnight. The other reason is that many textile businesses are family-owned companies which tend to think and act more long term. It is astonishing and gratifying to see how many people and organisations have been part of the ETP journey from the early days and are still as engaged today. We have seen people take ETP membership with them, when they moved from one organisation to another. A corollary of long term relationships is trust. Where trust is established communication and collaboration happens so much more easily and efficiently. We will always try to operate the ETP as a trust-based network, before resorting to rules and procedures.

6.???? Quality as the key to value and sustainability

Quality is something that is often difficult to exactly describe, but we somehow know it if we see/feel/experience it. We can assign quality to both physical things such as products, tools etc. as well as intangibles such as services, experiences, relationships… Quality is generally the outcome of a combination of expertise and care, such as grandma’s cooking. At ETP we always strive to bring value to our members/subscribers by providing quality services. Finding the best knowledge/expertise from wherever in Europe and preparing and delivering our activities with great care. We care about the needs and expectations of our members and try to meet or exceed them. We care about the quality and accuracy of the information we provide. And we care about the quality of the human relationships. By striving for quality in everything we do, we also believe we best ensure the sustainability of the ETP network. The ETP is easy to enter, and easy to exit. We do not believe in locking in members or subscribers through tricky terms or complicated cancellation procedures. This forces us to provide quality services to our partners on a daily basis.

7.???? Agility and the role of trial, error and feedback

Throughout the 20 years of ETP history we have tried and tested many different activities and services. Some, like the TEPPIES or our annual conferences proved successful from the start and are still part of our activities. Others worked for a while, some never really worked and were quickly abandoned. In a network that is dedicated to innovation such trial and error should be the norm. Now that we are a stronger organisation, we will experiment with even more new services and formats, but always diligently collect feedback from members to understand what resonates and why, to improve what has potential and quickly abandon what doesn’t click. The power of a network exponentially increases with the number of nodes (e.g. members) in the network. As the ETP grows, we are certain that we will find many different new ways of adding value to both existing and new partners. Through rigorous trial and feedback we strive to become a little better every day.

We are hopeful that in 20 years from now the Textile ETP will be a stronger and more relevant organisation, while staying true to our founding mission which is to contribute to the European textile sector as a world-leading innovator and successful player in the global market.