On the 19th October 2017 an UpGradeSME stakeholder meeting was organized by Steinbeis Europa Zentrum in frame of the Transnational Policy Dialog Event back to back with the Annual EUSDR Forum in Budapest. With more than 40 international experienced actors that are directly involved with innovative SMEs, the event aimed to share best practices and experiences concerning SME internationalization.
The transnational policy dialog event matched its two main objectives in line with the project’s objective namely: “Raising awareness of the relevant actors through the effective cooperation with the members of the local stakeholder groups for the exploiting of project information and know-how”.
Merging both events – the Policy Dialogue event and the annual EUSDR Forum – offered numerous advantages. Steinbeis Europa Zentrum is Working Group “Innovation and Technology Transfer” leader within Priority Area 8 of the EUSDR, project coordinator of INTERREG DTP project “Made in Danube” and the Danube Transfer Network is therefore extremely well connected with stakeholders coming from the Danube Region. Second, the EUSDR Annual Forum brought together stakeholders from all UpGradeSME target groups such as policy makers, managing authorities and the general public and third, four out of eight UpGradeSME project partners – including the Lead Partner- derive from the Danube Region and are therefore directly affected by the discussed topics.
The transnational Policy Dialog Event offered the unique possibility to bring together local stakeholders from several project partner countries. Mrs Andrea Kurucz project manager of UpGradeSME presented the project to the participants and provided information about the lessons learnt. The event has been a success also thanks to logistic arrangements as it took place at the Novotel Budapest City which is connected with the Congress Center where the Forum took place.
