The SMEntor project has started to lever its list of deliverables in the proposed project as of January 2017. Despite the fact that the project has two Work Packages a) Key account management for SME Instrument beneficiaries and b) Enhancing SMEs’ innovation management capacity, there has not been any KAM-COACH services were provided under WP 1 due to no SME Instrument beneficiaries in the covered region during the first period of project time. However, under the EEN project, EBIC-Ege Consortium staff have been providing targeted services to the local companies both to inform them about SME Instrument as well as assisting them to prepare competitive proposal. The staff of both projects had regular meetings twice a month and informal meetings occasionally as well as internal trainings. Company visits have been realized jointly for providing information on both EBIC-Ege and SMentorEGE project. This was helpful for both SMEs and project staff means of time management. For the company meetings in the premises of the project partners, companies are signed posted in both ways if needed. Nevertheless, KAMs are ready to implement the work package and the Ege Project Assessment Tool (EgePAT) is ready to use. This tool kept testing to improve and make it ready to implement in WP1. WP2 activities are much more successful than WP1 and no issues encountered in 2017. To improve the project performance and effectiveness of the services, feedbacks were requested from the clients after each event and some monitoring visits were realized. These feedbacks were collected via phone calls, emails and sometimes face-to-face meetings. During 2017 three different main issued encountered which had potential to effect the results of the project. One of them was on a consortium level, the other number of SME Instrument beneficieries and the other is the country level. Begining of 2017, the university administration took Prof. Dr. Fazilet Vardar Sukan from director position of EBILTEM which is the coordinating insitute. Altough this was one of the most important issues which might radiccaly effect the project, the team members spent extraordinarory effect to minimize the negative impact. They kept working according to project plan and just focused the outcome. So, this issue did not effect the outcome of the project at all. Secondly the number of SME Instrument beneficiaries in covered region is also was issue. In the proposal 10 SME Instrument beneficiaries were targeted to receive KAM services, however, no companies received this since there is no wining proposal yet in the region in 2017. Last but not least, the tension between Turkey and EU has negatively effected companies’ willigness (such as exluding EU Calls) to apply EU funded projects including SME Instrument. But, we always encouraged companies to apply EU calls including SMEI and assured them that the collaboration between EU and Turkey will never end.
