Periodic Reporting for period 2 - Start-at-best (Promoting STARTups and SMEs as the BEST place to work through workplace innovation)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2020-12-25 al 2021-12-24
With the objectives of:
• Raising the visibility and awareness of SMEs and micro-firms towards the relevance of workplace innovation for business competitiveness;
• Providing an added-value set of startup-inspired cases of workplace innovation;
• Launching open calls (3 national level calls and 1 EU level) that can help spark, fund and expand new original, feasible, competitive and socially impactful workplace innovations;
• And communicating the results at a wide level and towards other sectors and regions;
Start at Best comes at a critical time to inspire EU organisations to embrace Workplace Innovation practices, ensure the enhancement of business competitivity and get ready for the next industrial revolution that is already ongoing. Therefore, to accomplish our main goal (of providing services for raising small businesses aware of the importance of workplace innovation) we have:
1) Developed a repository of case studies. Several key tasks have been undertaken to ensure the identification and linking with regional, national and international organisations, projects and initiatives active in WPI, including EU networks and support agencies for SMEs. In observation of the pilot on Open Research Data in Horizon 2020, ad-hoc relevant business innovation practices have been translated into case studies, and in concomitance with the development of the web site, the database of WPI is stored and disseminated at https://startatbest.eu.
2) Focussed on services related to the designation and implementation of calls at EU and National level, regarding workplace innovation for small-scale projects. Calls for SME and micro-firms have been designed, drafted and published with WPI as the central subject of the action. The organisation and promotion of the calls for ideas have been revised with only online activities possible in light of recent events related to the Covid-19 pandemic. The network of SERN and the partners have proven extremely useful for dissemination activities, making good use of digital and social media.
3) Guaranteed the support and communication services for promoting the above-mentioned initiative and assure the replication of successful initiatives across other European regions and countries. Results have been achieved in developing channels specifically dedicated to the communication of the project, through social networks and other creative ICT means, in order to promote the calls and ensure that it reaches its pertinent audience, as well as other project stakeholders. Events such as the participation from Start at Best at the European Week of Regions and Cities is a must as they have great potential.
• Identification and linking with regional, national and international initiatives and projects;
• Development of website, social networks and other creative activities specifically dedicated to the project;
• Identification of relevant business innovation practices as case-studies and database where WPI case studies can be stored and disseminated;
• List of partner/stakeholder organisations published on the website;
• Repository of Case Studies, web-accessible and searchable;
• Design, draft and promotion of calls for proposals;
• Organization and promotion of the calls for proposals and assurance of the financial support of their realisation;
• Publication of the Call for Proposals;
• Development of a Workplace Innovation expert’s database;
• Monitoring of the 3rd parties projects.