NOVIMOVE
From System Innovation to Market Adoption
NOVIMOVE investigated how European inland waterway transport can become more reliable and efficient—from vessel designs for fluctuating water levels to smarter route planning, port operations, and passage through bridges and locks.
An €8.9 million Horizon 2020 project involving 21 consortium organizations, in which technical innovation was continuously integrated with market acceptance, governance, and implementation.
From proposal development to four years of implementation: European innovation requires more than just a strong idea.
PROGRAMMA
Horizon 2020 · 2020–2024
OMVANG
€8.9 million
CONSORTIUM
21 organizations
ROL
WP Lead: Communication, Dissemination, and Market Adoption
The Challenge: Innovation at the System Level
NOVIMOVE did not address just one bottleneck. The project designed interventions within a system in which technology, infrastructure, market behavior, and public decision-making constantly interacted with one another.
Climate-Resilient Ships
Concepts for fluctuating water levels required additional investments at a time when the urgency was not yet fully appreciated.
Ports and Terminals
: New logistics concepts had to be implemented in an environment where inland waterway transport was not automatically given the highest priority.
Travel Planning: Smarter planning only worked when public and private entities were willing to coordinate their data, capacity, and operating procedures.
Bridges and Locks
Optimizing scheduling sometimes proved to be secondary to more fundamental bottlenecks in infrastructure and maintenance.
New Concepts
Innovations such as the mobile crane terminal also raised critical questions within the consortium regarding feasibility and market acceptance.
21 partners, multiple systems
Researchers, ports, companies, and public organizations each examined the same innovation from the perspective of their own responsibilities.
The technical solution was rarely the whole issue. The same question kept coming up: Who needs to take action, who can make the decision, and why should that happen now?
From proposal to implementation
Throughout the entire project period, Erwin van der Linden—who was employed by EICB at the time—served as the work package leader for Communication, Dissemination, and Market Uptake and as a member of the Steering Committee. His involvement began as early as the proposal phase and continued through the project’s completion in 2024.
1. Proposal & Strategy
. Help draft the sections on impact, dissemination, and exploitation, and then incorporate them into the Plan for Exploitation and Dissemination of Results (PEDR).
2. Translation & Visibility
Translating scientific findings into a professional, public narrative through events, trade shows, the press, the website, animations, explainers, and approximately twenty NOVIMOVIES.
3. Stakeholder & Governance
Approximately six stakeholder meetings with market participants, government agencies, infrastructure managers, and research institutions—and providing feedback on critical issues to the Steering Committee.
4. Market Uptake
: Organizing market validation, developing roadmaps, and continuously assessing what was needed to make research findings relevant for practical application.
The common thread was always the same: not only to disseminate results, but to ensure that the scientific community, the market, policymakers, and the consortium could truly understand one another.
Market Adoption in Practice
NOVIMOVE demonstrated that a technically sound concept does not automatically lead to its implementation. Behind virtually every innovation lay a different institutional or economic reality.
Mobile Crane Terminal
The concept also met with skepticism within the consortium. Rather than brushing aside that resistance, it was channeled: critical parties served as reviewers, the topic was brought back to the Steering Committee, and it was discussed with external stakeholders.
As a result, the perspective shifted from “no investment for tomorrow” to “a serious option for the long term.”
Climate-Resilient Ships
Concepts for high and low water levels were technically relevant, but additional investments proved difficult to discuss as long as there was no widespread sense of urgency.
Resilience often requires investments before a crisis demonstrates the need for them.
Ports, Locks, and Decision-Making Authority
In the case of port innovations, it became apparent that European stakeholders did not always have the authority to make decisions. Furthermore, regarding lock scheduling, it became clear that better planning does not solve every problem when more fundamental infrastructure bottlenecks play a greater role.
The question behind innovation, therefore, is always the same: where is the real bottleneck—and who actually has both the ability and the incentive to eliminate it?
What NOVIMOVE is learning
NOVIMOVE confirmed that commercialization and market uptake must be integral parts of European innovation projects from the outset. However, a sound impact strategy cannot compensate for a lack of urgency, incentives, or decision-making authority.
A strong proposal and sound technology are therefore just the beginning. The real challenge is to continuously foster connections between research, the market, governance, and implementation.
That end-to-end experience—from proposal development to four years of implementation—is one of the European building blocks on which Aristoi is building today.
Are you working on a European innovation project in which strong results do not necessarily lead to practical applications?