Project description
Intellectual property rights play major role for small businesses
Intellectual property rights (IPR) represent an obstacle for the funding and investment of SMEs and start-ups. The EU-funded LEADERSHIP4SMEs project will support innovative SMEs and start-ups to improve and strengthen their IPR, facilitating their access to adequate funding that is vital to their growth. The project will set a platform of specific tools to strategically manage and place IPR in the business model and plan to attract funding, generate business and encourage collaborations. The platform relies on a compilation of the best practices in the domains of IPR management, business acceleration and funding that allows a better valuation of IPR and acts as an online hub of support from IPR, innovation and business support, and private and public funding and cooperation.
Objective
LEADERSHIP4SMEs is an ambitious initiative aiming to support disruptive SMEs and start-ups (SUs) to reinforce and leverage their IPR as an accelerator of growth on the EU single Market and beyond. The project seeks to raise the awareness and change the perception about the importance of IPR of the targeted groups of SMEs and SUs and the financial intermediaries and investors able to offer access to adequate funding to accelerate their growth by overcoming informational asymmetries. A platform endowed with specific tools to strategically manage and position IPR in the Business Model & Plan to attract funding and generate business opportunities will be implemented and will represent the catalyst of collaborations between the members of the community. The best practices in the fields of IPR management, business acceleration and funding will be collected and serve as a foundation for the development of a set of tools and services centered on a better valuation of IPR and aiming to help SMEs and SUs to successfully cross the “valley of death” and engage on the path to sustainable hyper-growth. The platform will also act as an on-line hub for support organizations from IPR, innovation and business support and private and public funding, and aims to better connect them and contribute to increasing cooperation for the benefit of disruptive SMEs and SUs. A database of qualified experts and organizations offering support will be created and their offer will be exposed to potential beneficiaries through a marketplace associated with the platform. The framework will allow to support step by step 15 SMEs and 15 SUs, selected through open calls, to exploit their IPR to raise capital, generate business opportunities and become “hypergrowth” role models. With the support of a community of strategic partners (DIHs, clusters, accelerators …) we will strive to enlarge the support to the larger community of innovative SMEs and foster the adoption of the framework as a growth enhancer.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
CSA - Coordination and support actionCoordinator
70197 Stuttgart
Germany
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.