Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Innosupport (Innovation Management Support for SMEs)
Reporting period: 2019-01-01 to 2019-12-31
To achieve the above mentioned objectives the proposed grant shall:
a) Identify bottlenecks to the creation of economic impact in companies benefitting from grants by Horizon2020's of the SME Instrument, the Fast Track to Innovation (FTI) and Future Emerging Technologies (FET) Open and address these bottlenecks with the help of capable coaches. This service to beneficiaries in the context of a giving project is called 'Key account management'.
b) Increase the efficiency and effectiveness of innovation processes in small and medium sized enterprises with significant innovation activities that could potentially become beneficiaries of European support to research and innovation but would not have effective access to consulting services for innovation management. This service, provided independently from a specific innovation project and focussing on a company's innovation management system, is called 'Enhancing the innovation management capacity of SMEs
The objective was to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of innovation processes in small and medium sized enterprises with significant innovation. This service, provided independently from a specific innovation project and focussing on a company's innovation management system.
Two SME instrument phase 1 beneficiaries led to a successful coaching.
Three more cases from End of the year (SME phase 1, SME phase 2 and FET) are still ongoing. Cooperation agreements with regional stakeholders (ISB an IHK) and the scale up project under COSME helped to identify SME for the EIMC service.
As a result of the EIMC service for SKS we performed two more workshops for the development of a innovation strategy. Although two more companies (Geutebrück and IT4e) are interested in an innovation audit. In all three cases only kick off meetings, explaining the methodology took take place but the IMProve audits did not start in the reporting period.
Enhancing SME’s innovation management will first of all help SME in their innovation readiness. Companies consulted in the described way will better understand what is needed for proper management of innovation projects and how to foster new developments.