Emilia-Romagna Plastic Academy Final Workshop: Sustainability, innovation and collaboration across regional value chains

Bologna, September 2, 2026 – Today, Clust-ER Health took part in the Final Workshop of the Emilia-Romagna Plastic Academy, a free advanced training programme funded by the European Funds of the Emilia-Romagna Region. The programme is aimed at people from both academic and industrial backgrounds – who wish to develop expertise in plastic materials, which are increasingly becoming key enablers of innovation and sustainability across the region’s leading industrial value chains.

The course was developed through a collaboration between University of Bologna, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, University of Parma and University of Ferrara, with contributions from numerous leading companies operating across the Emilia-Romagna region.

The final workshop provided an important opportunity to discuss the sustainability of plastic materials and packaging, bringing together representatives from institutions, academia and industry. The programme addressed key topics including sustainability, a comparison between the Italian and European contexts, a presentation on Women in Plastics, and a final cross-sector discussion involving companies operating in different but highly interconnected industries – from medical and food packaging to machinery and new materials.

Alongside the Clust-ER Health team, two of our member companies, Encaplast and Chiesi, also participated in the event, highlighting the growing importance of these issues for the biomedical and pharmaceutical sectors.

Packaging and sustainability: an increasingly critical challenge for healthcare

With the entry into force of the European Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), packaging and its sustainability are becoming increasingly important issues for companies and industrial value chains. This challenge is particularly relevant to the biomedical sector, which must reconcile a complex set of requirements, including material safety and performance, environmental and economic sustainability, and compliance with the regulatory requirements applicable to medical devices.

In this context, the ability to connect different areas of expertise and foster dialogue across the entire value chain is becoming a key factor in supporting innovation.

This is precisely the direction in which Clust-ER Health is strengthening its commitment, including through its participation in the European EPIC project, which aims to develop new connections and opportunities for collaboration at European level.

Networking, collaboration and training: the key messages from the workshop

Several key messages emerged from today’s discussions: networking, collaboration, value-chain integration and training.

Building networks means creating connections not only among regional institutions, universities and research centres, but also among companies. It means fostering greater collaboration throughout the value chain, bringing together different expertise and needs: from machinery manufacturers and material and packaging companies to end users, in a dialogue capable of generating innovation.

Training is equally crucial, both to provide young people with the skills required by increasingly innovative industrial value chains and to enable those already working in the sector to update and strengthen their competencies in a rapidly evolving industrial environment.

From this perspective, the Emilia-Romagna Plastic Academy is a concrete example of how collaboration between universities, companies and institutions can contribute to developing skills and creating new opportunities for innovation.

Clust-ER Health will continue to support and promote collaboration between companies, research organisations and institutions, fostering dialogue across value chains and the development of new initiatives focused on innovation, sustainability and skills development.