R3GROUP joins the SME competitiveness debate at the 22nd INSME Annual Meeting
R3GROUP was presented at the 22nd INSME Annual Meeting, “Driving SME Competitiveness: Innovation, Sustainability and Growth”, held in Heraklion, Crete (Greece), on 12–13 October 2026 and co-organised by INSME and Enterprise Greece.
Representing R3GROUP partner Netcompany, Dr. Raimund Bröchler (Delivery and Program Manager) and Evangelos Xanthakis (Senior Architect and Technical Manager) brought the project to an audience of policymakers, entrepreneurs, researchers, ecosystem builders and financiers from across Europe and beyond.
From adoption barriers to practical pathways
Evangelos Xanthakis spoke in Panel 1, “The New Frontier: AI, Robotics and Automation as Drivers of SME Competitiveness”, moderated by Jay Mitra (International Entrepreneurship Forum). Dr. Raimund Bröchler joined Panel 2, “Going Green to Grow: Sustainability as a Driver of SME Competitiveness”, moderated by Paola Zerilli (University of York).
Their presentation, “From adoption barriers to practical pathways”, showed how four EU-funded projects tackle different steps of technology adoption in SMEs: JARVIS (human–robot interaction), RENÉE (flexible AI and robotics), GenAISpace (AI-ready data and sovereign access) and R3GROUP, which contributes the digital and reconfigurable factory.
The key message: for SMEs, adoption is not a single technology problem, but a chain of business, technical, human and trust barriers that need to be addressed together.