EU FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT TIPS

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 overall objective of this Call for proposals is to pursue the EU efforts aimed to strengthen cluster management excellence in the EU as a way to provide more professional business services to European SMEs through clusters and therefore contribute to the development of more world-class clusters in the EU.

The interested cluster organisations and business networks should be engaged into a strategic industry-driven collaboration (or are planning to work together) along a common value chain or on a transnational project in any manufacturing or service sector, and are facing some common challenges, and willing to:

• Improve their management practices as well as their market/competitive advantages or value-chain analytical capacities and;
• Provide top quality services to their SMEs, especially on integrating creativity into their business, facilitating SMEs internationalisation, better exploiting and diffusing Key Enabling Technologies (KETs), assisting SMEs on IPRs protection and further addressing resource-efficiency issues within their cluster.

DEADLINE: 29 October 2014 17:00 (Brussels time)