"The H2020 project has two main specific objectives i.e. continuing the EEN services for the enhancement of the innovation capacity of SMEs in Flanders and the Key Account Management for the beneficiaries of the SME Instrument in Flanders. As was already the case in 2018, particular attention is given to the integrated management of these two services and the organisation of smart signposting of clients within the VEBIN consortium in charge of the overall activities of EEN in Flanders, including the interaction with the NCPs for H2020 in Flanders, more specifically the NCP for SMEs and the NCP for Access to Finance. Also important is the interaction with the local support ecosystem for SMEs in Flanders, and in particular the innovation support services that operate in the region of Flanders, as well as the access to finance support services. Important milestone and major achievement in 2019 is that thanks to the ongoing efforts of the VEBIN team we managed to convince our host organisation, acting on behalf of the Flemish Government, to review the rules for co-financing projects that go beyond the R&D stage (starting from TRL7) and are more market oriented. Moreover, given the huge amount of Seals of Excellence in Flanders, especially for Phase 2 - a number that is higher than the EU average),the VEBIN consortium has continuously kept these cases on the radar so that eventually in December 2018 the regional decision has been made that these cases should benefit from a type of ""red carpet"" treatment when they are signposted in the regional ecosystem in order to see if co-financement -within the existing regulatory framework- can be considered. At present modalities are under construction to enable this new 'fast track to co-financement'. Smart signposting, high quality service delivery with a clear European added value are the focus in the present project. Special attention is also given to embedding the project activities in the overall framework of activities of the Flemish consortium of the Enterprise Europe network (VEBIN). In that way we secure that H2020 clients of the SME instrument get also familiar with the other services of EEN: there is a continuous interaction between the team in charge of KAM and EIMC services and the account management of EEN so as to discover synergies and new opportunities for the Flemish SME clients."
