Imagine a one-stop shop where children's book authors, illustrators, and animators can team up online to turn stories into interactive e-books and apps — without needing a big tech budget. The platform comes with built-in authoring tools (think drag-and-drop for e-book creation), a curated store to sell the finished products, and a quality-check system designed by child psychologists to make sure every book is age-appropriate and educational. It's like Canva meets an app store, but specifically for the European children's publishing world.
European children's book publishers and small creative studios face a major gap: turning traditional stories into interactive digital products requires expensive tech teams, and there's no easy way for freelance illustrators, voice actors, and animators to collaborate on e-book projects. Meanwhile, parents and educators have no reliable way to know if a children's app is actually pedagogically sound or just flashy entertainment.
The project delivered a collaboration platform for creative professionals, an authoring tool for building interactive e-books and apps, a digital store for distribution, and a curation system based on child psychology expertise. A mock-up demo and a final integrated prototype were completed across 11 total deliverables.
If you are a children's book publisher struggling to turn your print catalogue into interactive digital products — this project developed an authoring tool and collaboration platform that lets authors, illustrators, and animators co-create e-books and apps without heavy tech investment. The platform was built by a consortium of 9 partners across 5 countries, with 6 SMEs driving the development.
If you are an EdTech company looking for curated, pedagogically sound children's content — this project developed a curation system backed by child psychology and pedagogy experts, plus in-app analytics to track how children interact with reading material. The system was designed to ensure every item is educationally valuable and technically sound.
If you run a creative marketplace and want to expand into children's digital content — this project built a collaboration ecosystem where self-publishers, illustrators, voice actors, and animators find each other, offer services, and co-produce interactive stories. The platform includes gamification features to boost engagement among creative professionals.
The EU contributed EUR 986,193 to this Innovation Action, running from January 2015 to June 2016. The total project investment would have been higher, as IA projects typically require co-funding from the consortium partners.
The project delivered a final prototype of the integrated platform, including an authoring tool, collaboration ecosystem, and a store component. Based on available project data, the platform was designed to serve the European children's e-book industry broadly, but specific capacity metrics are not documented in the available deliverables.
The platform was developed by a consortium of 9 partners led by Theofanis Alexandridis Kai Sia EE, a Greek SME. IP ownership would follow Horizon 2020 grant agreement rules, where each partner typically owns the results they generate. Licensing arrangements would need to be discussed with the coordinator.
The project built a dedicated curation system informed by experts in pedagogy, child psychology, and evolutionary psychology. This was designed to ensure technical quality and age-appropriateness, though compliance with specific post-2016 regulations (like GDPR for children) would need to be verified.
The project delivered a final prototype with an authoring tool described as featuring an easy-to-use interface. Based on available project data, the tool was designed for creative professionals without deep technical skills, but integration timelines would depend on your current systems and the state of the prototype since project closure in 2016.
One of the project's specific objectives was to develop a new breed of in-app analytics services. These would track how children interact with the e-books and apps. Detailed analytics specifications would need to be obtained from the consortium.
This is a strongly industry-driven consortium with 6 out of 9 partners being SMEs and a 67% industry ratio — well above average for EU projects. The coordinator is a Greek SME, and the partnership spans 5 countries (Greece, Ireland, Italy, Poland, UK), giving good coverage of European publishing markets. Only 1 university partner provided the academic backbone for the pedagogical curation system. The heavy SME presence signals this was built for commercial use, not just research. However, the project closed in mid-2016, so the current status of the platform and the consortium companies should be verified before any business engagement.
The coordinator is Theofanis Alexandridis Kai Sia EE, a Greek SME. SciTransfer can facilitate an introduction to discuss licensing or collaboration.
Want to explore how this children's e-book platform could fit your publishing or EdTech business? Contact SciTransfer for a detailed brief and a warm introduction to the development team.
