Clust-ER Health at the IURC study visit: from Bologna to Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes

From 14 to 18 September 2026, member regions of the IURC Asia & Australasia Community of Practice “Industrial Modernization through Digital Technology and AI” met first in Emilia-Romagna and then in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes to compare notes on AI adoption, industrial digitalisation and skills development. The delegation brought together representatives from the Aichi and Hiroshima Prefectures (Japan), Catalonia (Spain), Western Greece, Sisak-Moslavina County (Croatia) and the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region (France). Clust-ER Health joined the Bologna leg on the afternoon of 14 September, presenting the region’s health and wellness innovation ecosystem to the delegation, and then followed the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes part with from 16 to 18 September.

Bologna: presenting Emilia-Romagna’s health innovation ecosystem

The Emilia-Romagna leg of the visit opened on 14 September at Le Serre di ART-ER, in Bologna’s Giardini Margherita, with welcome remarks from Gian Luca Baldoni, Emilia-Romagna Region, and Valeria Bandini, Europe and Internationalisation Area Manager at ART-ER. The morning set out the regional ecosystem for AI innovation: the High Technology Network, AI for business activities, followed by applied-AI case studies from MISTER Smart Innovation, AIRI and Fondazione Reggio Emilia Innovazione.

We joined in the afternoon, after Alain Merenghi (ART-ER) presented the region’s Skills Intelligence initiative in which Clust-ER Health engages its members to provide insights aligned
with the needs of regional research, industry, and the healthcare system. As far as AI is concerned, the analysis that came out of the working group on Skills for Big Data & AI for health was published in March 2026.. The floor then moved to Emilia-Romagna’s innovation clusters: Elisabetta Bracci for Clust-ER Innovate, Federico Capucci for Clust-ER Mech, and Clémence Foltz for our own cluster.

In our presentation, we introduced the region’s health and wellness innovation ecosystem across five value chains: MedTech, Pharma & ATMPs, Big Data & AI, MatERialS, SalusTech. We showed how human-centred AI and digital transformation run across all of them, rather than sitting in any one silo, drawing on a few concrete examples:

• PRECISEU, the first European Regional Innovation Valley on Precision Medicine, which is improving the use of health data for research and advanced therapies and assessing regional readiness for the European Health Data Space;
• AMBITIOUS, where regional partners are turning AI into everyday clinical practice: DataRiver‘s ARIA telemedicine platform for continuous remote monitoring of elderly patients, and RELAB‘s work enhancing an interactive app for pediatric cardiac arrest training;
• InnomedCatalyst, our accelerator supporting startups, spin-offs and SMEs working on digital precision medicine through mentorship, webinars and European networking;
• and our contributions to training and education activities, from the Skills Foresight reports we help deliver with ART-ER, to an EIT-labelled IFTS course for medical-device technicians and the DIGICARE advanced training programme on digital technology and telemedicine, run with the region’s four universities.

Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes: human-centred AI, skills and technology transfer

We then joined the delegation for the programme in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, across Clermont-Ferrand, Lyon and Grenoble.

Clermont-Ferrand

The delegation first met ITICIA, a public-private AI consortium led by Clermont Auvergne University, presented by Théo Ducros. ITICIA shared the findings of a gap and needs analysis it carried out across five sectors, one of them health, and presented the first use cases developed through its training work: maritime anomaly detection, path generation for autonomous vehicles, renewable-energy forecasting, and computer-vision inspection of glass containers. Together these cases show AI being applied to prediction, perception, quality control and decision support in real operating environments. ITICIA was clear that health and critical-infrastructure applications call for particular care, given sensitive data, legal requirements and the need for professionals to interpret AI outputs critically. The emphasis throughout is on augmentation and accountable decision-making, not unsupervised reliance on automated outputs.

The delegation then visited Hall 32, presented by Director Stéphane Meuric, a not-for-profit public-private innovation and training hub that promotes industrial careers, builds skills and supports innovation projects for SMEs, larger companies and startups. It combines shared facilities, employer engagement and practical learning to make industrial transformation tangible and accessible. Hall 32 also works with Michelin Smart Industries (MSI), and the group toured the Lab Hall 32, the centre’s shared technical floor equipped for prototyping and fabrication (additive manufacturing, electronics, robotics, 3D scanning and CAD/CAM) where connected equipment, practical training and worker co-design are used to reduce physical strain and help employees operate and maintain automation rather than be displaced by it. Real workplace challenges, such as repetitive manual tasks, were used to show how automation can improve both safety and job quality.

The day closed with a presentation of CIMES, the manufacturing-focused competitiveness cluster, by General Manager Jean-Christophe Baudez.

Lyon

In Lyon, after the visit of the headquarters of the Région, the group visited the SIDO exhibition on IoT, AI, robotics and XR, before spending time at individual booths. Among the organisations we spoke with was Minalogic, the region’s competitiveness hub for the digital sector, which also gave us a brief introduction to Medicalps, a nearby health-tech cluster, as well as companies including Elecsyor, Enchanted Tools and Maxon.

The delegation then moved to the Regional Digital Campus in Charbonnières-les-Bains, presented by Director Mylène Richard. Alongside its role as an inclusive digital-skills initiative (designed to open up education and training to people who cannot easily access conventional graduate schools, including people with disabilities, and to broaden access to digital learning regardless of location or personal circumstances), the Campus hosts the Usine du Campus, a full-scale digitalised factory where companies can test the digitalisation of their production processes before rolling out their industrial and energy transformation in real conditions. We visited this test-before-invest facility as part of the tour.

Alongside it, we met Digital League, a regional nonprofit network of around 430 software and IT companies supporting digital transformation, cybersecurity, AI adoption, peer communities, events and international engagement. While healthcare is not currently among the sectors represented in its membership, it was interesting for us to learn how the network works. Cybersecurity is one of its main priorities, particularly for SMEs that often lack dedicated security expertise: the network runs practical awareness activities, including serious games and simulations, to help firms identify cyber risks, then supports them in building improvement roadmaps and connecting with specialist providers. Its cybersecurity club, its largest with around 70 members, offers a trusted peer-learning community for companies to exchange experience and practical approaches.

The day continued with a presentation of the Thematic Institute for Artificial Intelligence by Alexandra Marquet-Basset (ENS Lyon) and Pierre Borgnat (CNRS), a consortium of universities, Grandes Écoles, national research organisations and around 70 laboratories working on AI for science, imaging, health, knowledge extraction, robust prediction and responsible AI; and closed with an IURC-CoP session to discuss initial findings from the study tour and next steps.

Grenoble

In Grenoble, the programme opened with an overview of the local AI ecosystem from the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and the National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (INRIA). Cédric Gouy-Pailler and Bérengère Bougue presented CEA’s Research & Technology division, one of whose four areas of focus is health: the division runs around 600 R&D partnerships, holds more than 400 patents and operates 42 technology platforms, including a neurotech clinical trial involving an operating room and a neuro-BMI (brain-machine interface) project with EPFL. Christine Durand then presented INRIA, whose strategic areas of interest include digital transformation in healthcare and is closely tied to the MIAI multidisciplinary AI cluster, and highlighted collaboration across AI, data and cybersecurity with local centres acting as bridges between national research capacity and regional partners.

Looking ahead

A week of exchanges across two regions made clear how much common ground already exists between Emilia-Romagna’s and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes’ approaches to human-centred AI: in skills development, industrial digitalisation and, for us, in bringing AI responsibly into health and care. Thank you to ART-ER and the Emilia-Romagna Region for organising the Bologna leg, to the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region for hosting us in Clermont-Ferrand, Lyon and Grenoble, and to all the delegations and organisations who shared their time and their work with us. We look forward to following up on the connections made along the way.