The geographical area covered by the consortium are four Polish regions of Southern part of the country. At the moment of proposal submission for the project, on all calls of the program Horizon 2020 only few companies Poland were beneficiaries of the SME Instrument.
Lack of capacity in innovation management was recognized as an important barrier in the process of creating economic impact on innovation activities in SMEs. The crucial area (skills, innovation and exploiting potential of foreign markets) of the Polish SMEs are chronically underperforming what reflects in Poland’s position (4th from last) on the European Innovation Scoreboard 2019. The project was addressed to the specific challenge and the scope of the topic, as set in the work programme, and has foreseen offering mentoring and coaching services to beneficiaries who needed the support in the innovative development, including elaborating strategy of innovation. This project provided high quality innovation support services for SMEs where these were absent or unaffordable on the local markets. The project aimed to support projects with an European dimension that would lead to radical changes in how business (product, processes, services, marketing etc.) is done.
The general objective of the project was to contribute to smart growth of four Southern regions of Poland by increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of investments in research, development, innovation and by contributing to a better and more efficient connection of links along the innovation chain and by this – to contribute to the smart growth of the European Union.