Digital Innovation Hubs: dynamic facilitation and thrust from regional innovation agencies

2026-07-22

ICE (formerly ADE) has been the innovation support agency for the SMEs in the region of Castilla y León (Spain) for more than 20 years. ICE has acted as the orchestrator of the Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs) in Castilla y León, promoting the transfer of technology and new innovation practices and projects in the SMEs that will derive in the digitisation of the regional industry. The overall objective of the DIHnamic project is to verify, at a large-scale, new innovative facilitation services that have been already piloted with success, orchestrated by means of the dynamic facilitation and thrust of the Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs) in the region of Castilla y León, and other DIHs across Europe, addressed at SMEs from Castilla y León, and its dissemination at the European level throughout innovation agencies. In this sense, DIHs will be promoted as the ideal one-stop shops for SMEs to facilitate access to innovation services. To that aim, DIHnamic establishes 3 specific objectives: O1. To desing and implement a cascade funding that will provide monetary support to digitalisation support measures aimed at regional SMEs (at least 50 SMEs) thanks to the Digital Innovation Hubs. O2. To explore other innovative facilitation mechanism throughout collaborative work with other agencies. O3. To show the adequateness of the RCT methodology to assess the effectiveness of innovative actions. The DIHnamic project is structured in three main pillars that will run for 36 months: I) mapping and specification of innovation in innovation agencies; II) randomization and intervention in the DIHs; and III) assessment of impact and effectiveness and framework for replication.

Spain

2026-02-01