EU FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT TIPS

The Digital Single Market Strategy will provide businesses and entrepreneurs with new opportunities to scale up across Europe and grow global. As a driver for growth, digital should also be embraced by SMEs and microenterprises to enable them to innovate and remain competitive.

ICT innovation vouchers are one of the tools regions can implement to support microenterprises and SMEs to maximise the potential offered by the digital economy. ICT innovation vouchers are an effective incentive for SMEs and microenterprises to innovate by investing in digital technologies and online services.

The main objective of the action is to intensify cluster and business network collaboration across borders and sectoral boundaries and to support the establishment of European Strategic Cluster Partnership to lead international cluster cooperation in fields of strategic interest – notably in support of the development of emerging industries.

Applicant consortia are free to propose activities they consider relevant. However, it is essential that all activities are clearly related to the objective set out for each strand and duly justify:

• strand 1: supporting preparatory actions for the establishment and shaping of new European Strategic Cluster Partnerships (ESCPs); for which expected results and deliverables are a partnership agreement, an internationalisation strategy plan and an implementation roadmap;
• strand 2: supporting the first implementation, testing and further development of European Strategic Cluster Partnerships; for which the expected results and deliverables are collaboration activities developed and implemented with international partners and a monitoring scoreboard with verifiable indicators.

The scope of this call is to provide support to innovative SMEs, including start-ups, for the design and creation of innovative applications, in order to foster the delivery of mobile public services.

Specific Challenge:

Current societal and economic challenges as well as rising expectations to reduce the burden on users, put pressure on all public administrations to provide efficient, open and citizen-centric public services.

Due to the increased use of mobile technology as well as the increasing availability of public information, data and online services, public services can be transformed. Coupling open public data and services with information and services offered by the private sector can lead to innovative, user-friendly and personalised services that can be accessed easily.

Because of their size, knowledge and agility, SMEs are key actors for the provision of those innovative services. The "apps" market for mobile devices is a very dynamic market, which mostly lacks application specifically for the public sector. Engaging SMEs into the potentially huge public sector innovation market is a challenge for local and regional public authorities.

The scope of this action is to provide support to innovative SMEs, including start-ups, for the design and creation of innovative applications, in order to foster the delivery of mobile public services.

The aim is to help the interaction of citizens and businesses with public administrations. This may be done through the combination of public and private sector services, through mobile technologies. Although they may be first piloted in a local context – with the involvement of public administrations and end users - the solutions need to ensure replicability, also taking into account multi-lingualism and, where necessary, the cross-border dimension. Scalability and sustainability issues are to be considered.

Scope: The SME instrument consists of three separate phases and a coaching and mentoring service for beneficiaries. Participants can apply to phase 1 with a view to applying to phase 2 at a later date, or directly to phase 2.

Expected impact:

• Enhancing profitability and growth performance of SMEs by combining and transferring new and existing knowledge into innovative, disruptive and competitive solutions seizing European and global business opportunities.
• Market uptake and distribution of innovations tackling the specific challenge in a sustainable way.
• Increase of private investment in innovation, notably leverage of private co-investor and/or follow-up investments.
• The expected impact should be clearly described in qualitative and quantitative terms (e.g. on turnover, employment, market seize, IP management, sales, return on investment and profit).

Type of action: SME Instrument (70%)

The submission to this call will be open as of 1 January 2015.

Aims of the call is to achieve :

• a gradual development of co-operation projects with the national Trade Promotion Organisations, as well a strengthening of the European Trade Promotion Organisations network; 
•  a closer collaboration with  EU Member States and their Trade Promotion Organisations in the framework of the Missions for Growth and other internationalisation activities of the European Commission.

This action includes three strands:

1. To enhance cooperation among the trade promotion organisations and with the European Commission (setting up a European agenda);
2. To assist to the organisation of future Missions for Growth and their follow up via the network of national trade promotion organisations; 
3. To develop of a web-based instrument that can be of use to both national trade promotion organisations and the European Commission in order to map the international trade promotion activities inside and outside the EU.     

The deadline for electronic submission is 19 March 2015 at 17:00 hours (Brussels time).

Topic: Capitalising the full potential of online collaboration for SME innovation

Specific challenge: Identifying suitable partners for innovation activities is recognised as a major barrier to SME innovation. Innovation support services are addressing this challenge traditionally by two interventions that are often combined: (a) the provision of networking space for personal meetings either as one-off meeting (‘brokerage events’) or as more stable networks (‘clusters’) often with a limited geographic reach; and (b) the definition of ‘cooperation profiles’ (‘technology offers’, ‘partner search profile’ etc.) that are distributed through networks of intermediaries. To a different degree intermediaries become active in establishing the partnership (‘brokerage’). Social media and other web-based services challenge these existing approaches and ask for their revision.

Scope: To address the described gaps proposals should address one or more of the following aspects:

• develop and test new service designs for ‘assistance to online collaboration for innovation’ for SMEs in diverse sectors;
• make such new services accessible for enterprises in sectors that are typically not yet benefitting from innovation support;

·         develop and test a qualification profile, curriculum and training courses for staff currently providing brokerage services in established networks or SME agencies.

Service designs and qualification profiles shall be formulated independently from a particular collaboration or social media platform. Tests of services shall be undertaken on platforms that are open and bring together already a critical mass of enterprises and innovation stakeholders. Establishing such platforms will not be supported.

The nature of the topic – online collaboration – suggests that the training modules are established as web-based self- or collaborative learning modules that are supported by case studies in the form of videos. The qualification profiles and training modules shall be published under a creative commons license.

Projects proposing new service designs for ‘assistance to online collaboration for innovation’ should indicate on which platform(s) the new service would be tested and in how far the newly developed service could be scaled-up.

Deadline Date 10-03-2015 17:00:00

Eurostars is a programme that supports research-performing small and medium enterprises, which develop innovative products, processes and services, to gain competitive advantage. Eurostars does this by providing funding for transnational innovation projects; the products of which are then rapidly commercialized. The Eurostars programme is publicly financed with a total budget of 1.14 billion euro and is currently supported by 33 EUREKA countries and the European Union. Funding for Eurostars participants is provided on a country-by-country basis.

Deadline: 11.09.14