PROXINNOV

Their core work

PROXINNOV is a regional Digital Innovation Hub (DIH) based in La Roche-sur-Yon, France, specializing in robotics and automation technologies for small and medium-sized enterprises. Their core activity is helping regional SMEs test, experiment with, and adopt robotic systems and IoT in their manufacturing operations — bridging the gap between advanced robotics research and practical industrial deployment. In the EU context, they participated in DIH², the pan-European robotics DIH network, serving as a regional access point connecting local manufacturers to European robotics capabilities. Beyond facilitation, their involvement in METRICS shows they also contribute to technical benchmarking and performance evaluation of robotic systems across sectors including healthcare, agri-food, and industrial inspection.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

PROXINNOV's earliest H2020 engagement centered tightly on SME enablement — helping regional manufacturers access robots and IoT systems for agile production, essentially an intermediary and facilitation role. By 2020, their participation in METRICS signals a shift toward technical depth: metrological evaluation, system qualification, and performance benchmarking of robots in competitive settings across multiple sectors. This progression suggests they are maturing from a regional access point into an organization with hands-on technical assessment capabilities, which widens their potential value in future consortia beyond pure SME outreach.

PROXINNOV is moving from regional SME facilitation toward technical robot evaluation and cross-sector benchmarking — making them increasingly relevant for projects that need independent assessment of robotic systems alongside SME community access.

How they like to work

PROXINNOV has participated exclusively as a consortium partner, never as project coordinator — a pattern consistent with regional innovation hubs that contribute sectoral access and SME networks rather than leading research agendas. Both their projects involved very large European consortia, and their resulting network of 53 partners across 28 countries from just two participations reflects the scale of pan-European DIH initiatives. This breadth of network exposure suggests they are practiced at working within large multi-stakeholder consortia and can navigate the coordination complexity that comes with them.

Despite only two projects, PROXINNOV has accumulated 53 unique consortium partners across 28 countries — an unusually broad network driven by their participation in large pan-European initiatives. Their connections span the full robotics ecosystem, from research institutes and technology providers to industrial SME end-users across Europe.

What sets them apart

PROXINNOV fills a specific niche as a French regional robotics DIH with direct, structured access to manufacturing SMEs in the Pays de la Loire — a region with a dense base of industrial SMEs in food processing, equipment manufacturing, and automotive supply chains. Unlike research institutes, they are built to translate technical robotics capabilities into operational adoption for companies that lack in-house R&D capacity. Their METRICS participation adds a technical benchmarking dimension that distinguishes them from pure facilitation hubs, making them potentially useful both for market-facing dissemination and for independent evaluation tasks.

Highlights from their portfolio

• DIH²
  Their largest project by budget (€116,416) and the one most central to their identity — a pan-European robotics Digital Innovation Hub network that connected PROXINNOV to 40+ partners and established their role as a regional SME robotics gateway.
• METRICS
  Demonstrates technical depth beyond typical DIH facilitation — involvement in international robot evaluation competitions and metrological system qualification across healthcare, agri-food, and inspection sectors.