"During this period, both regions involved in the action have had very good results in the SME Instrument EU Program. Since 2014, a total of 60 SME beneficiaries of Phase 1 (46 in Valencia and 14 in Murcia) and 14 SME beneficiaries of Phase 2 (12 in Valencia and 2 in Murcia).
Part of this success has had to do with different initiatives financed under COSME EEN SEIMED project. A total of 659 participants have attended the different SME Instrument events (594 in Valencia and 65 in Murcia) and more than 80 companies have received individualized advice.
Besides four of our KAMs did attend the event ""Pump up the KAM"" held in Brussels on the 27th and 28th of June, 2016, in order to exchange experiences with other KAMs and improve the service.
Finally, 30 cases have been closed (IVACE 24 and INFO 6), doing the needs Assessment, supporting the coach selection, validating the coaching plan and facilitating interaction between the SME, the Coach and the European Commission until the final assessment.
Both partners feel that the EIMC service is actually a very valuable ""entry service"" to get to know deeply pre-selected companies and define tailor made action plans to boost innovation and competitiveness.
Nevertheless it is very important to mention that this service has a long learning curve and needs senior innovation advisors to properly deliver value added to the companies.
Both partners are doing losts of efforts to continue improving the service and continue training the innovation advisors involved in the action. It is good to mention that 3 innovation advisors attended two IMP3rove trainings on ""Action Plan Development"" and the ""Introduction to the IMP3rove approach"" in Germany.
IVACE has invested time and resources to organise 5 workshops in collaboration with relevant innovation experts at international level on different topics to do with innovation management such as ""Innovation Strategy"", ""Design Thinking and Creativity"" or ""Agile project management"". The participation in these workshops has been linked to the EIMC services, linking also the marketing efforts of these COSME events to the promotion of the EIMC services. A total of 120 participants of 79 different companies attended the workshops and 16 of them actually fulfilled the application form to request for the EIMC service. The satisfaction questionnaires carried out during the sessions gave as a very positive feedback.
Finally 21 cases have been closed during the reporting period and there are 14 open ones (IVACE 2 closed cases and 14 open ones and INFO 19 closed cases).
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