Technology platforms : accelerators of innovation in the industry

A technology platform is a place that brings together resources (skills, hardware, software) linked to a breakthrough technology.

The advantage of developing such platforms throughout France is that they bring together the players in a regional or national ecosystem to produce generic prototypes that can then be adapted by companies in the industrial sector concerned, thereby accelerating the innovation process in the industrial fabric and giving SMEs and ETIs in particular access to breakthrough innovations.

Against the backdrop of the globalization of trade, which increased sharply at the beginning of the 21st century, this system of platforms is a response to the need for local industrial companies to make a rapid and intense effort to innovate, so that they can bring to market differentiating products and services that will maintain and develop the competitiveness of French industrial sectors.

The problem for most of these industrial companies is that they have neither the skills nor the investment capacity to develop breakthrough innovation on their own. Technology platforms offer a response to this challenge.

In this context, the aim of this article is to examine the evolution over time of the innovation process, and to describe the main types of platform that can accelerate this process in the industrial fabric.