The most significant innovation factor within the framework of the project compared to existing services, initiatives or similar was the interdisciplinarity with which the topic of IPR management was approached as well as the focus on its utilisation.
Everyone agrees that intellectual property is becoming increasingly important for highly innovative SMEs that can solve the problems of our future. That is why it should increasingly becoming the focus of strategic orientation and thus the centre of entrepreneurial decision-making. It must no longer be seen in isolation as part of the legal department and as a necessary must, but integrated into a holistic corporate management approach with the awareness that the management of IP has a significant influence on the development of the economic potential of an entrepreneurial venture.
LeadershIP4SMEs provided a solution for this concept. On the one hand, it consists of an interdisciplinary consortium of technology transfer and IP protection and valorisation, business strategy and development and financing experts. This competence is bundled in an innovative and tested service approach. On the other hand, the project created a community that unites the relevant tools and stakeholders in order to make the actual implementation scalable and thus have a socio-economic impact on the whole of Europe.
The main outcomes by the end of the project and their potential (socio-economic) impact are therefore the following:
- We increased the awareness of SMEs with respect to the importance of IPR and its impacts on business and funding, contribute to changing their perception and increasing the adoption of measures, strategies and support services and reduce the informational asymmetries for financial partners.
- We implemented a platform to aggregate the project community of SMEs and support services providers, created a repository of mutualized resources and coordinated the activities.
- We developed and tested in two batches an integrated, IPR-centric and business strategy aligned support approach, allowing high-growth potential SMEs and start-ups to access an adequate mix of funding and business opportunities to accelerate their development.
- We defined a assessed all the services and created its roll-out to create sustainable impacts.
