Resilient supply chains in the EU

In early June 2022, the European Cluster Collaboration Platform (ECCP) published a report on the impact of supply chain disruptions in the EU. It showed how critical these disruptions are for all 14 industrial ecosystems. Following up on this, a second survey was designed to focus on solutions that can mitigate disruptions as well as approaches that can increase supply chain resilience within the EU.

Prognos designed and implemented the survey “Solutions to Supply Chain Disruptions in the EU” as part of the ECCP project. Now, the report on this survey has been published.

Our approach

The data for this report stems from a survey in which a total of 336 people from the EU participated. The survey was translated into all EU languages and distributed through various channels between May and September 2022. Fifty-four percent of respondents work in small and medium-sized enterprises, 21 percent in cluster organisations, and 15 percent in large companies. People from all 14 industrial ecosystems participated in the survey. The majority of participants work in the ecosystems of mobility, transport and automotive, renewable energy and health.

Key findings

Impact of supply chain disruptions:

• In the EU, the three ecosystems of agri-food, construction, and mobility, transport and automotive had the largest losses, both in inputs and market share
• Most EU companies have been affected by external shocks in recent years. These were reflected in higher prices for material and services, and led to delivery delays
• Supply chain problems were most often felt in inbound logistics, procurement and production, according to the majority of respondents

Solutions to build resilient supply chains in the EU:

• Diversifying the supplier base, building redundancies (such as safety stock), and obtaining supplies from regional companies
• Increasing measures in the areas of human resources (training and new recruitment), research and development, as well as smart production solutions
• Financial assistance from the EU to help companies develop new technologies and build new production capacity
• EU projects that strengthen supply chain governance, promote energy and resource independence, and support innovation ecosystems

Links and downloads

To the study (PDF)

More Information on clustercollaboration.eu

More information on the main project

Project team: Dr Jan-Philipp Kramer; Lennart Galdiga; Maximilian Welford; Fabian Schmidt

Last updated: 28 November 2022