ACCIÓ advisory service for catalan companies and other entities to enhance participation in Horizon2020 Calls.
The participation of Catalonia in Horizon2020 is really positive but the potential of participation is also high. Because of that ACCIÓ offers an advisory service for catalan companies (an also other entities) to continue improving the participation in these calls.
This service is focused on Horizon2020 Calls and also other R&D European Programmes (cascade funding, LIFE programme...). In the case of Horizon2020 the support is provided for the participation in consortiums and, more specifically, to the SME Instrument, where Catalonia is having a great success.
ACCIÓ staff at Barcelona headquarters and also at the Brussels office implement different tasks: dissemination of the Horizon2020 Calls through seminars and website, specific advice on the proposal, identification of the most suitable topics for the project, partner search (through the EEN Network where ACCIÓ is member) and other ACCIÓ services to increase the success of the project.
In the case of SME Instrument, apart from the advisory service, ACCIÓ is also participating in 2 European projects:
• INNCAT project to enhance the innovation management capacity of SMEs through the ACCIÓ services and acting as KAM (Key Account Managers) to provide the coaching service to catalan SME Instrument beneficiaries.
• EMPOWA project: a strategic alliance of research, innovation and business stakeholders, aiming to boost the participation of women entrepreneurs in the Horizon 2020-SME Instrument.
Resources needed
Own resources: staff from ACCIÓ.
Evidence of success
Regarding the success of Catalonia in Horizon2020, during the period 2014-2018, Catalonia has received more than 1000 €M, which represents 2.7% of the total Horizon2020 executed funding.
Specifically, the catalan results regarding SME Instrument have been really positive reaching the number of 219 projects(161 phase 1 and 58 phase 2) and a total of 86.34 €M EU Contribution.
Potential for learning or transfer
During the OSDDs (events organized by the regions of the S34Growth project), it was requested to ACCIÓ to explain in more detail this service. From our point of view some of the regions are interested in knowing how the service works in order to analyse a possible implementation in their own regions.
In that sense, S34Growth has become a close network really useful to explore partner search for Horizon2020 Consortiums (with the regions that are already members of the EEN Network and others that are not).
Depending on the priorities of each region, their own resources, their own R&D programmes…a service like the Horizon2020-ACCIÓ advisory service could be provided from their region.
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Tags: Support, SME, Innovation, Learning, Crossborder region
