Project description
A specially designed toolbox helps SMEs innovate
As the backbone of the economy, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) represent 99 % of all businesses in the EU. Innovation is considered a major engine of growth for SMEs. The EU-funded DestinationUX project developed a toolbox/guide to increase the participation of SMEs in existing and future innovation programmes. The toolbox, called Design Option Paper, will help innovation agencies map an SME's journey when participating in an innovation programme and identify the level of satisfaction at each stage. It will also find the gaps that need to be addressed to improve the process. The guide will assist in the creation of programmes that support SMEs to become more innovative.
Objective
DestinationUX aims to use the experience, the tools, the capacity and the partners’ knowledge in order to address a common innovation support challenge namely to increase the satisfaction and the participation of SMEs to existing and future innovation programmes through the creation of tailor-made toolbox regarding SMEs Experiences from Innovation Support Programmes. The toolbox/guide, entitled “Design Option Paper”, willhelp innovation agencies to :
- map SMEs journey when participating in an innovation programme
- identify the level of satisfaction per stage
- find the gaps/ issues and improve the process
Intermediary organizations offering support services on Innovation to SMEs are relevant actors in this process from two main points of view:
1) they can help policy makers in the development and application of programmes,
2) they can support SMEs to become more innovative.
The Peer learning activity will serve to learn from the best and to share good and bad practices in increasing the satisfaction of innovation
programmes to SMEs that will lead to better results and greater impact of the innovation programmes. In a few words the DOP will help innovation agencies to create better programmes for SMEs, with more impact, using less money and resources.
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
CSA - Coordination and support actionCoordinator
57001 Thermi Thessaloniki
Greece