Capturing the digital future with SRC-EDIH

COOPER, 24. 1. 2024

A press conference was held today at the Pretoria Palace in Koper, where speakers presented the services and personal experiences offered by the SRC-EDIH European Digital Innovation Hub project to companies and public institutions for the digitisation of their own work. The companies and public institutions involved in the project will receive an assessment of their existing digital developments and the skills and services to use digital technologies to improve their business and production processes, products or services in the future.

Today, digital transformation is a necessary part of doing business successfully and achieving competitiveness, both in business and in the public sector. The transformation of business into digital environments requires the introduction of new technologies, changes in business processes, as well as in the culture and mindset of employees within organisations.

The European Union has set up a network of European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs) to support businesses and the public sector in driving change towards digital action. It includes 151 hubs in 31 countries of the European Union and SRC-EDIH is one of two in Slovenia. The Centre for Knowledge Development and Transfer of the University of Primorska and its researchers from the Faculty of Management and the Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies are one of the main project partners in Slovenia. The coordinator of the SRC-EDIH project in Slovenia is the Novo mesto Development Centre.

Over the next two years, SRC-EDIH will support over 100 organisations and more than 1000 employees in acquiring digital skills and competences in Slovenia. All organisations and institutions involved in the project will have access to technical and professional expertise, through 100 different training courses and access to 11 test environmentsto test advanced digital technologies before investing in them. Funding advice services and access to the innovation ecosystem are also available. All project services are 80-100% subsidised.

SRC-EDIH in Slovenia consists of a consortium of 16 partner organisations and their experts, who will use their knowledge and experience in various digital technologies to promote the digital transformation of organisations in Slovenia in the coming years. The consortium is made up of the following regional development agencies, colleges and universities, municipalities, chambers of commerce and industry, and various interest groups:

Novo mesto Development Centre
Municipality Novo mesto
Faculty of Industrial Engineering Novo mesto
Faculty of Information Studies Novo mesto
Municipality of Ajdovščina
University of Primorska
Chamber of Commerce of Dolenjska and Bela krajina
Faculty of Applied Social Studies in Nova Gorica
Development Information Centre Bela krajina
Koofr, d.o.o.
CadCam Lab, d.o.o.
University of Nova Gorica
Mikrografija, d.o.o.
Development Agency ROD Ajdovščina
Association of Employers of Slovenia
Association of Regional Development Agencies GIZ

The Hub is supported by both the European Commission and the Ministry for Digital Transformation, which co-fund the SRC-EDIH project.

The Rector of the University of Primorska, Prof. Dr. Klavdija Kutnar, in her opening address highlighted the importance of the SRC-EDIH project for the University of Primorska and its integration into the broader social environment in the municipality, region and country.

“The SRC-EDIH project is one of the most important strategic projects for the University of Primorska in the current development period. Slovenia has set itself the target of being one of the ten best performing EU countries, as measured by the European Innovation Index. Despite improvements in recent years, we are still a moderate innovator. In order to successfully realise this national strategic objective, it is important to implement measures to raise the value of individual indicators in the European Innovation Index. Many of them address digitisation and the use of information technologies in society. We are convinced that the Republic of Slovenia will significantly improve the above-mentioned European Innovation Index also with the help of the SRC-EDIH project The SRC-EDIH project is one of the key projects for the University of Primorska, through which the university carries out its social mission in the local and wider environment.” said the Rector of the University of Primorska.

Andrej Erzetič, Advisor to the Mayor for Digital Development, Office for Digital Development and Office Operations at the Municipality of Koper, presented the vision of the digital development of the Municipality of Koper and the experience with the use of the SRC-EDIH digital maturity assessment tool. “As a rule of thumb, if you don’t know where you are, you don’t know where you are going. That we want and need to move towards ever more digitalisation is clear. It is good that the digital transformation is going in the right direction and in the right way, and it is good that we are comparing ourselves with others. All these are the guiding principles of the Municipality of Koper in the digital transformation of its operations,” said Erzetic.

Marko Krnec, CEO of K2PACK, which is already actively involved in the SRC-EDIH project, summarised his experience of the project so far in the following assessment“We decided to participate in the project because we have just completed our first investment in digital tools in 2023, which was co-funded by the P4D call. We wanted to see where we are strong and where we still need to work. We also wanted to see how our digital maturity compares to other companies in Slovenia and Europe. Our previous participation in the project has also helped us significantly in our internal organisation change, when we gave digital development an extra work boost and recruited a new person for this work in the company,” described the collaboration.