The BrightWall consortium – comprising a value chain of three European SME manufacturers and distributors of light guide technology, building materials and technology embedded concrete, together with an architecture SME and an SME specialized in sustainable construction – aims to pursue a major market opportunity through the development of an innovative concrete material tailored for building applications, which allows for controlled transmission of daylight into buildings. BrightWall targets the development of a new building material – translucent concrete – in the form of a sandwich panel intended for façades and load bearing applications, which has high architectural potential and also meets important considerations for both energy efficiency and indoor climate through the supply of natural light. The concept targets radical innovations enabling dynamic control of daylight transmission through liquid crystals and addresses S&T barriers related to the production of prefabricated wall sandwich panels with embedded optical guides and thermal insulation. BrightWall allows entirely novel applications and enables a range of benefits and unique selling propositions to a very large group of potential end-users in construction and creative industries – most notably mitigation of environmental problems; improved indoor climate and the promotion of energy-efficient buildings. At the same time, BrightWall represents an attractive business case and will entail increased competitiveness for the SME value chain and for the EU as a whole.The SME consortium has the capabilities to produce and market the new product, but lacks the financial resources as well as the expertise in photonics, building materials and electronics to enable the required technological development. Therefore, the group has identified the Research for SMEs programme as the suitable vehicle for overcoming the technological and financial barriers associated with the achievement of the objective.