From demonstration to deployment: Bridging the gap to market uptake

Led by the Business Innovation Unit at ICONS and featuring Horizon Europe projects DEDALUS, SUPERSHINE, InEEXs, RENplusHOMES and SIRCULAR, the workshop examines why replication fails and how to work, drawing on barriers, breakthroughs, and lessons from real-world pilots across Europe. Beyond convening the session, ICONS provides cross-project methodological and strategic insights on replication, providing the framework that anchors the discussion.

Replication is not linear; it is not a copy-paste exercise. It is a system-level shift that must align technology with policy, funding cycles, market capacity and local contexts across macro, meso and micro layers. Too often replication stalls because plans are added late, technical readiness is mistaken for ecosystem readiness, and results made public are assumed to be reusable.

Building on cross-project experience, the workshop discusses a flexible framework for replication readiness that helps stress-test value propositions, profile potential replicators and shape adaptable technical, legal and financial pathways, while ensuring policy and funding alignment and fostering stakeholder co-ownership. The goal is to move from demonstration to deployment, closing the replication gap and enabling durable market uptake in the built environment.

Against this backdrop, ‘From demonstration to deployment: Bridging the gap to market uptake’  will translate the approach into practice, focusing on the transition from experimentation to real-world deployment. The session looks beyond technological maturity to the socio-economic, regulatory and community factors that ultimately determine successful uptake and scaling, aiming to generate concrete, lasting impact beyond the lifetime and scope of a single project.

Projects’ representatives will share how replication is being approached in their respective contexts, through use cases that cover multiple real-word angles. The selected projects reflect a diversity of replication settings, different TRL stages, regions, policy environments and stakeholder dynamics. Whether at the early stages of planning or already engaging in uptake activities, each project will reflect on what’s worked, what remains challenging, and what proved surprising. From shifting policy landscapes to community resistance, from digital readiness to business model mismatch, these contributions will shed light on replication as a system-level challenge, not a linear or purely technical step.

Closing discussion

The session will conclude with a discussion on how EU-funded innovation can better prepare for post-project deployment and generate tangible benefits for the built environment across Europe.

Participants will be invited to contribute through:

• a live mapping exercise of enablers and blockers (Miro or Slido), guided by audience questions tied to key replication moments in each project,
• interactive polling to compare perceptions and realities.

Join this session to explore how to scale innovation meaningfully and walk away with actionable strategies for replication and uptake in your own context.

Discover the details of the workshop on the official Sustainable Places 2025 website.

Image by wirestok – Freepik