Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MED4INNO (French Mediterranean Support for Innovative SMEs)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2020-01-01 do 2021-12-31
MED4INNO Project is an extension of the running MED2EUROPE Project financed under COSME Program for Enterprise Europe Network activity. The project covers the whole French Mediterranean area with 3 regions: SUD Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur (SUD), east of Occitanie (former Languedoc – Roussillon) (OCC) and Corsica (NUTS1 region - FR7). For this period 2020/2021 the project is carried out by 4 partners located in the 2 major regions (SUD Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur and Occitanie), Corsica being covered by signposting for this specific Action:
- risingSUD (former ARII PACA) as the Economic Development Agency for the region Sud, Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur Region (RISINGSUD)
- Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie de région Occitanie (CCIO) which joined the project in 2020/21 for EIMC activities,
- Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie de région PACA (CCI PACA) for Sud, Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur Region (and Corsica through Signposting)
- AD’OCC as part of the Region Occitanie (ADOCC)
The main objective of the project remains to help companies to improve their competitiveness through support actions mixing innovation management provided by the team and qualified external advices from business & strategic development experts with specific attention during the follow-up in both cases. 2 types of Service Packages are proposed according to 2 “cases” of regional SMEs we have to address for this project:
- for SMEs which are benefiting from EIC Program grants (SME-I/Accelerator/FET/), which are future European Champions, => service named Key Account Management action (KAM);
- for SMEs with significant innovation activities and/or with high growth potential for international development, selected among our Clients database or signposted from partners, => service named Enhancing Innovation Management Capacity Action (EIMC).
- risingSUD (former ARII PACA) as the Economic Development Agency for the region Sud, Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur Region (RISINGSUD)
- Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie de région Occitanie (CCIO) which joined the project in 2020/21 for EIMC activities,
- Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie de région PACA (CCI PACA) for Sud, Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur Region (and Corsica through Signposting)
- AD’OCC as part of the Region Occitanie (ADOCC)
The main objective of the project remains to help companies to improve their competitiveness through support actions mixing innovation management provided by the team and qualified external advices from business & strategic development experts with specific attention during the follow-up in both cases. 2 types of Service Packages are proposed according to 2 “cases” of regional SMEs we have to address for this project:
- for SMEs which are benefiting from EIC Program grants (SME-I/Accelerator/FET/), which are future European Champions, => service named Key Account Management action (KAM);
- for SMEs with significant innovation activities and/or with high growth potential for international development, selected among our Clients database or signposted from partners, => service named Enhancing Innovation Management Capacity Action (EIMC).
According to the budget granted to our geographical area, the MED4INNO project has a global objective to support new 84 SMEs with a full Service Package: 9 for KAM, 75 for EIMC. During the period 2020/2021, the 4 project partners achieved 79 cases, of whom 60 are new cases started in 2020/2021. Indeed we started new 58 services packages in EIMC (77% of the target) and 2 new in KAM (17%), which gives a global achievement rate of 71% of the total new services packages expected (our rate was 80% in 2019). This average result is mainly due to a drastic drop down of KAM cases, lacking of funded EIC projects during a long period. For EIMC cases, 3 of the 4 partners involved kept a good trend to start Innovation Management diagnosis & missions with SMEs, but all partners met difficulties to deploy full service packages due to the lack of time of managing teams in companies during this COVID period.
Beneficiaries of EIMC service package for Innovation Management are innovative SMEs or SMEs on traditional activities with new or innovative project to set up. Even if our performance on the number of EIMC packages is good, we still met difficulties to motivate SMEs to invest the whole service packages of 7 days and to stick to the action plan agreed with the Innovation Assessment.
It is too early to expect impacts from our actions. Firts results are met with half of our EIMC Clients (identification of output for 29 EIMC cases). But our services are integrated in our “EEN Client journey” as a specific step for SMEs requiring such support, so we expect to identify more potential impacts as soon as possible.
It is too early to expect impacts from our actions. Firts results are met with half of our EIMC Clients (identification of output for 29 EIMC cases). But our services are integrated in our “EEN Client journey” as a specific step for SMEs requiring such support, so we expect to identify more potential impacts as soon as possible.