European Commission

On 15 July 2019 it was World Youth Skills Day! Let’s mark the day by taking a look at how the EU’s Programme for the Competitiveness of SMEs (COSME) is helping young people improve their skills and become more competitive on the job market. 

Skills in space

Reach the stars with Copernicus and explore opportunities in the space sector! In 2019 and 2020, the EU’s Earth Observation Programme is organising the ‘Eyes on Earth’ Roadshow across five countries. The events are open to all people interested in a career in the space sector, or who simply want to learn about how space data affects their everyday lives!

Skills in entrepreneurship

Are you working in woman entrepreneurship? Join peer-learning activities in women entrepreneurship. Through a series of workshops, this initiative identifies regional and national strategies that support female businesses. In particular, they explore entrepreneurship education and opportunities for lifelong entrepreneurial education. 

Skills in tourism entrepreneurship

Dive into a VOYAGE experience and discover entrepreneurial travel. This unique travelling experience is also opportunity for young entrepreneurs to develop their business ideas in a relaxed and stimulating environment. For high school and university students, there is the EUMillennialsTOUR. This initiative offers an immersive learning experience through targeted school trips and a mobile application.

Skills in tourism

Are you looking for a career in tourism off the beaten track? Discover the stories of the real people in these careers in theJobs in Tourismtestimonials. You will open your horizons to the sea of employment opportunities offered by this bustling sector!

Skills in digital & high-tech

How does the EU support the development of skills in the high-tech and digital industries? The report Skills for smart industrial specialisation and digital transformation offers an overview of the policies offered at national level across the EU. The final Skills for Industry project conference, held in June, highlighted two major needs in the European skills sector:

• education programmes that support and foster lifelong skills development
• more learning opportunities at national and regional level 

Skills in fashion

For the young creatives, the Skills in Textiles, Clothing, Leather and Footwear  (TCLF) project explores opportunities within these four sectors. Stay tuned as this COSME initiative is about to publish a report on the current state of play of careers in this sector and put the spotlight on some little known career opportunities.

For more information

• Discover the COSME Data Hub (tip: apply the filter for the industry of interest)

• Follow the hashtag #COSME_EU on social media and stay up to date with the latest learning opportunities!

Read the full article on the EASME website.

‘INNOSUP-1’ is the Horizon 2020 funding programme of cluster-facilitated projects for new industrial value chains. The programme supports SMEs to develop new value chains that cross business sectors. It boosts innovation by combining expertise from different domains.

13 INNOSUP-1 projects have been supporting SMEs to date and five more were launched in May 2019.

What does innovation support do for SMEs?

SMEs have great potential to create new products and services. However, they often face challenges that could be solved thanks to cross-sector cooperation.

INNOSUP-1 gives SMEs the support they need to join the dots and create disruptive innovations. It connects SMEs with other SMEs or larger organisations across many sectors to create new value chains. By doing so, the programme enables SMEs to transfer technologies, strategies and approaches.

There are many positive impacts. SMEs from all sectors develop their business via these innovative value chains. European citizens benefit from improved products, reduced environmental impact, growth and new job opportunities.

53 clusters delivering the projects

The INNOSUP-1 projects are delivered by consortia of experts coming from SMEs, consultancies and research organisations.

Many of these project partners are cluster organisations. Clusters are groups of enterprises that collaborate closely with each other. The 13 projects that have been active so far were delivered by 139 partners. Two out of 5 of these partners were cluster organisations and between them they counted 6,500 SMEs among their members.

More than 3,200 SMEs reached

The INNOSUP-1 projects have established contact with at least 3,200 SMEs to date. This number will increase as the new projects launch their calls for support. The new projects aim to reach almost 1,500 SMEs in total and to give innovation support to over 600 of them.

Over 1,600 SMEs supported

To date, INNOSUP-1 projects have provided innovation support services for over 1,600 SMEs. These SMEs are located across Europe and beyond. They were present in 27 of the EU Member States and nine of the 16 Horizon 2020 associated countries.

€26 million spent on innovation support for SMEs so far, which will rise to a total of €63 million  

All INNOSUP-1 projects are required to spend at least 75% of their budgets on innovation support services for SMEs. Innovation support services can take the form of funding, vouchers for specialised services, workshops, mentoring, and online platforms.

SMEs have to date received over €26 million in innovation support services from INNOSUP-1. As the new and ongoing projects continue, this figure will rise to over €63 million.

For more details on the projects and the support they receive read the programme impact report and read the full article on the EASME website.

83 top-class innovators selected for funding to reach the market faster under the European Innovation Council (EIC) pilot’s EIC Accelerator, previously known as SME Instrument Phase 2 and 291 companies will get funding under the Phase 1 of the programme. Companies under both phases will receive free coaching and business acceleration services to make the most of their funding.

Find out more about all the companies in the EASME datahub.

The European Innovation Council (EIC) pilot will support 83 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from 17 countries under the EIC Accelerator, previously known as SME Instrument Phase 2.

The total amount to be distributed between the SMEs working on 78 projects is € 148.7 million from the EU’s research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020. Each project will receive up to €2.5 million to finance innovation activities like demonstration, testing, piloting and scaling up.  

The companies will also benefit from 12 days of free business coaching and acceleration services.

The projects selected include a new generation safe and environmentally-friendly light aircraft, an anti-bacterial textile for hospitals, a 3D audio software, motion planning technology for autonomous driving and a superbot for audio calls.

291 innovators selected for funding under EIC’s SME Instrument Phase1

The European Commission received 1765 proposals in total. Further to an evaluation on paper, 174 candidates pitched their innovations to a Jury of professional investors, entrepreneurs and business experts that evaluated the solidity of their project and selected the 78 innovations for funding.

Spanish SMEs were the most successful with 12 companies selected for funding. They were followed by 9 companies from Switzerland and 7 businesses from Ireland. Most selected companies are active in the field of health, ICT and engineering. 

A total of 291 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) form 24 countries have been selected for funding under the latest round of the SME Instrument, in the so-called Phase 1 of the programme.

The companies will receive a total amount of €13.7 million to share between their projects to get their innovations faster on the market.

In this phase of the SME Instrument each project, 288 in total, will receive €50.000 to draft a business plan. Several companies can team up to propose one project. The companies will also get free coaching and business acceleration services.

Most companies selected for funding are in the field of information and communication technology (ICT), health and engineering. Most companies are based in Spain  with 42 companies selected for funding. THey were followed by 33 companies from Italy and 22 from Switzerland.

The European Commission received 2784 proposals for the 7 May cut-off. 

Read the original article on the EASME website.

The European Commission received 261 proposals for Fast Track to Innovation (FTI) before the latest cut-off date on 25 May 2019.

FTI promotes close-to-the market innovation activities open to all types of participants. The programme offers € 3 million to consortia composed of 3 to 5 partners including mainly industrial participants.

FTI is fully bottom-up. As there are no set topics, proposals are classified according to the keywords introduced by applicants. The top keywords introduced were engineering, health and ICT.

The proposals include participants from 28 countries, the largest number of proposals being submitted by Spanish, Italian and Dutch applicants.

Fast Track to innovation (FTI) is part of the European Innovation Council (EIC) pilot and helps close-to-the-market innovations jointly developed by small companies and their industrial partners get on the market faster.

Results will be available in autumn 2019.

Read the original article on the EASME website.

The Executive Agency for SMEs (EASME) is organising a side session during the World Circular Economy Forum (WCEF) in Helsinki, Finland, on 3 June 2019: ‘Scaling up innovative circular solutions for plastics’.

The participants will address the key aspects for scaling up innovative circular solutions for plastics and the main future opportunities and orientations for the circular economy in the plastics sector. They will also have the opportunity to learn how projects funded by Horizon 2020, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, address these and other challenges to boost circular economy solutions for plastics. 

The Side session “Scaling up innovative circular solutions for plastics” aims at bringing together innovators, researchers, companies, public authorities and policy makers to promote circular economy in the plastic sector. 

An interactive workshop with projects pitches, live pools, discussion tables, along with other activities will be organised to facilitate exchanges of views between participants.

Registration

To participate in the Side session “Scaling up innovative circular solutions for plastics” on 3 June contact Marco Ranieri and Stefania Rocca from EASME. The number of places is limited and they will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.

Read the original article on the EASME website.

‘Secrets of Success’, the biennial brochure that celebrates entrepreneurial successes across Europe and COSME countries, is back with another cohort of innovative entrepreneurs.

The latest edition investigates the journeys that entrepreneurs from across Europe have taken, discovering their motivation, and recording their struggles along the way. In ‘Secrets of Success’ we showcase small and medium-sized enterprises in the European Members States and countries in COSME, Europe’s programme for small and medium-sized enterprises. The entrepreneurs come from wide-ranging sectors, and bring a great variety of experiences to this year’s edition. Despite their differences, they all share the following two values: ‘Learning from Failure’ and ‘Building your Best Team’. Through both struggles and successes, these entrepreneurs are examples of persistence, and highlight the benefits of connecting, sharing and innovating.

Read this year’s edition to learn from these entrepreneurs and allow their stories to inspire you on your own entrepreneurial journey.

The modern world is full of both challenges and solutions, yet how can we ensure that innovative minds are made aware of the problems they can solve? Where can those with a solution connect with those who need their ideas? The Social Challenges Innovation Platform answers those needs and provides a marketplace and meeting hub for those with a challenge, to conect with those with an innovative solution.

The platform provides a place for exchange and an opportunity to build partnerships to feed the European Social Ecosystem with innovative solutions. The platform supports Public Authorities, Private Companies, and Third Sector Organisations, referred to as Challenge Owners, through the process of identifying social and environmental challenges, and deciding which ones should be uploaded to the platform.

Once uploaded to the platform, the challenges can be viewed by Solution Providers which can be social innovators, startups, SMEs or other innovators. The providers then use the platform to accelerate their innovations and connect with those who need them most. Solution Providers can also apply for the open calls, and submit proposals to receive a grant of up to EUR 30.000 along with six months of mentoring to fully develop solutions to be used by Challenge Owners.

The first open call and the awarded projects on the platform have already produced results. You can find out more about the platform, its work and the awarded projects on the main website.

Watch the web-series about the socialchallenges.eu projects here: