The project included five specific work tasks:
- Management, internal communication and reporting: it included standard project management processes of project planning, controlling, steering and organizing of all activities in accordance with Horizon 2020 provisions. Internal communication process was conducted to ensure clear and regular information flow, coordination and achievement of partnership's goal. Skype and e-mail were mostly used for the latter. There were no specific problems related to this. We have also ensured continuous reporting on the state of the project, via Participation Portal and via e-mailing with the contact officer, assigned to this project.
- The Learning Process: partners have engaged in mapping of partners' competences and gaps and in peer learning activities: observance of several best practices, discussions with different stakeholders and reviews of the third parties solutions. The outcome of the learning process was the transfer of knowledge between all three partners and the results of the learning process were (1) an eCatalogue, which includes information on the best practices visited and explanation of their potential for implementation of other innovation agencies' regions and (2) the draft of the POWER2INNO model for empowerment of small and micro companies' for innovative entrepreneurship. The eCatalogue is available at all three partners' websites and the POWER2INNO model is available in the project's main deliverable, the Design Options Paper.
-The Pilot Projects: at the end of the learning process we have implemented three pilot projects, involving entrepreneurs in order to test the POWER2INNO model. Crowdfunding was selected during the best practices analysis as an innovative funding source, but still not well-known, and usually understood by SMCs as one of the last options to get funds. Partners detected the need of promoting this new instrument among the entrepreneurs: its general characteristics and different types as well as understanding of what entrepreneurs need to do before starting the successful crowdfunding campaign. Two of project partners chose to organize a workshop: Tecnopolis PST on 26th September 2016 and BIC Euronova on 28th October 2016 and RDA Green Karst executed coaching sessions with three selected entrepreneurs in the period between 17th October and 9th December 2016. The responses of the participating entrepreneurs were positive. The POWER2INNO partners have used the pilot projects also to observe the effectiveness of the used methods and acknowledged feedback information in the preparation of the Design Options Paper as well.
- The preparation of the Design Options Paper (DOP): based on the learning process and the organized pilot projects the partners have prepared the POWER2INNO model for empowerment of small and micro companies’ for innovative entrepreneurship, which is described in detail in the DOP, along with the presentation of guidelines for the implementation of the model. The DOP is prepared in a reader-friendly format and as a tool for understanding the implementation principles, in addition to the professional foundation for such practices. The DOP is also the main result of the POWER2INNO project.
