Under the aegis of the Croatian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, HAMAG-BICRO together with the European Commission’s Directorate General for Research and Innovation planned to organise a two-day international conference CROATIA: INNOVATIVE ENTERPRISE WEEK 2020 on 1-2 April 2020.
The objective of the conference was to raise awareness of the potential for the financial instruments, facilities and accompanying measures, in particular those under Horizon 2020 to enhance access to finance for research and innovation. It was meant to bring together representatives of the European institutions, national decision-makers, researchers, entrepreneurs and investors to discuss the opportunities and challenges of the future framework program for research and innovation in the European Union.
The focus of the conference was on financing and financial tools for developing innovative products, processes and services by highly innovative Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), who are the backbone of the European economy with strong contributions to employment, innovation, growth, and social cohesion. They therefore deserve special attention and support to enable them to contribute further to a prosperous Europe.
Sufficient access to external finance - with the main goal of filling the gaps in funding for early-stage, high-risk research and innovation by SMEs, as well as stimulating breakthrough innovation - for SMEs is crucial to obtain economic growth, job creation and competitiveness. It is one of the central elements in the European economic policy debates. To improve access to finance for SMEs, the EU as well as most EU Member States support SMEs with a wide range of loan, guarantee and/or equity instruments to mitigate market failures in SMEs finance. In addition, in the past years the EU initiated both the Investment Plan – of which SME-financing is an important part – and the Capital Markets Union Action Plan aiming at establishing an integrated capital market in the EU to boost the creation of jobs and economic growth.
The objective of the conference was to increase the participants’ (SMEs, private financial sector, intermediaries, different levels of policymakers engaged in R&I and finance) understanding of the different funding opportunities, both public and private, for innovative SMEs, with a particular focus on the European Innovation Council, InnovFin financial instruments and InvestEU.
Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns imposed by majority of EU Member States, it was not possible to organise the conference as planned under the Croatian Council Presidency.
