EEN-Innovation PT

The objective of this project is to contribute to smart growth in the European Union by increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of investments in RD&I and by contributing to a better and more efficient connection of actors along the innovation chain. In order to achieve the above objective, 2 main target groups and 2 specific objectives are defined: a) beneficiaries of the SME Instrument at this level, the specific objectives consist in identifying bottlenecks to the creation of economic impact in companies benefitting from grants by Horizon 2020 SME Instrument and address these bottlenecks with the help of capable coaches. This service to beneficiaries of the SME Instrument is called 'Key account management'(KAM) and 22 of these services are foreseen. b) selected small and medium-sized enterprises with significant innovation activities and a high potential for internationalisation, which could potentially become beneficiaries of European support in terms of research and innovation but without effective access to consulting services for innovation management. At this level, the specific objective is: to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of innovation processes in those companies. This service, provided independently from a specific innovation project and focused on a company's innovation management system, is called 'Enhancing the innovation management capacity of SME” (EIMC) and 137 of these services are foreseen. In summary, the partners participating in this project (IAPMEI, ADI, CCIPD, CEC and INESC) expect to deliver a total of 159 services covering all the country. The project respects the excellence, 'no wrong door', proximity, subsidiarity and additionally principles as well as the mechanisms of signposting and follow-up of target audience inside the Network. This project is linked to related relevant services proposed in the SGA COSME 2015-2016 thus ensuring synergies between the different European funding programmes for the benefit of SMEs.