Stakeholders

To reach our objective, the first step is to set-up National and Regional Networks, in all of these targeted countries, in order to facilitate the access to the existing SMEs, allowing their identification and participation in the activities of the project.

Our main and first concern is to identify and contact organisations in the New Member States and Acceding Countries (NMS&AC), at national and/or regional level, in order to put in place networks of organizations involved with SMEs, especially intermediate bodies like SMEs Associations and Chambers of Commerce, but also local Development Agencies, Technological Centres, Public Authorities and Education and Training Institutions that can establish contact with ICT SMEs.

These national/regional networks grouping different stakeholders, all of them organisations working with SMEs, can act as interfaces between our project and the SMEs.

Tools and Services

The InnoSME project will make available for all these stakeholders a set of web services addressed to the SMEs, in their national language, integrated by:

• Self-diagnostic tools for SMEs at three levels: innovation management diagnosis at strategic level, internal and external innovation adoption diagnosis at operational level, and assessment of the risks and benefits associated to the involvement in RTD projects
• Training materials, personalised following the results of the different diagnostic processes, and
• Advice based on the results of the assessment done, in order to improve their weak points and to reinforce their strong ones

The result will be to provide each SME with a personalised improvement work plan, generated from the application of the previous services.

The set of tools could be available for SMEs in the InnoSME Web, as well as in the Webs of the Organisations collaborating with the project.

Events

InnoSME intends to carry some common activities with the stakeholders in two different ways:

• InnoSME Workshops – The project will organise two workshops in every country (one in 2007 and another in 2008) related to the participation of SMEs in FP7 and CIP. These workshops will be sponsored by InnoSME with the project funds
• Stakeholder's events – InnoSME is ready to participate in the events organised by the stakeholders, collaborating with speakers, materials, etc.

Tasks

InnoSME will demand to the Organisations that decide to be involved in the project to carry some tasks, always within the framework of their regular work with the SMEs members of their networks:

• Identify SMEs with potential innovative capabilities
• Distribute to these SMEs the InnoSME information
• Motivate the SMEs to participate in the activities of the InnoSME project and to use the set of tools
• Logistical support to the InnoSME Events in their related Regions and/or Countries

In addition, InnoSME will provide to the stakeholders a collaborative virtual workspace to share information and best practices with other organisations.

Commitment

A framework written commitment will be required to the Organisations participating in the InnoSME project. This agreement refers only to the above described tasks, and does not commit the Organisation into any funding collaboration.

Advantages

The involvement in the InnoSME project will provide to the SMEs with some clear advantages:

• To know their innovation positioning and capabilities through self diagnosis tools
• To improve their innovation skills through personalised assessment and training
• To benchmark results and share best practices and experiences
• To participate in FP7 & CIP Calls for proposals through advice and matching

The project is a chance for the stakeholders Organisations to team up with experts on EU programmes and projects and address SME members with high research and innovation potential with valuable funding information.