After the first three meetings held throughout 2021, we had the opportunity to organise one hybrid event on Friday, the 29th of October. Jakub Kruszelnicki from FundingBox kindly accepted to moderate this session. After presenting the agenda and the speakers of the day, he walked us through the objectives of the digitalisation working group co-organized by EURADA and Funding box, as well as the timeline of the events and Newsletters in 2021. He also encouraged participants to take part in this Digitalisation Working Group.
After the initial introduction of the Digitalisation working group, a second speaker from FundingBox, Graciela Garrido, gave a presentation on the Cascade Funding. She gave an overview of the different tools and platforms that can help find funding opportunities, such as the European Commission portal and FundingBox platform. She underlined the benefits of Cascade Funding for SMEs such as the simplified submission and reporting, the opportunity to bring technology to market or to access to networking and other services. She also stressed the efficiency gains for the regional governments compared to traditional mechanisms.
The session continued with Maria Roca from I4MS and Begoña Sánchez from TECNALIA, explaining the different aspects and objectives of the I4MS project. I4M’s objective is to provide innovation support to manufacturing SMEs such us the projects and innovations that have been developed within the project. María Roca showcased the role of the I4MS label identifying innovative companies in different regions by providing some examples. Begoña Sánchez explained the different aspects of the I4MS project such as the two Working Groups: Best Practices and Supporting Mechanisms on Digital Transformation and Up-skilling challenges in the manufacturing industry. She presented some of the events that took place during 2021 which helped to obtain more information about the challenges in the different ecosystems within the Working Groups.
The final presentation was given by Carmen Renovell, from CEEI Valencia with the Cooperation and Innovation Map of the Region of Valencia. The goal of this Innovation Map is to boost the business structure in the different territories of the Valencian Community, taking into account their specificities and current situation. For this purpose, they created a collaborative environment for innovation that facilitates cooperation between innovative companies, knowledge-generating agents and the consolidated businesses, to provide critical support in some key sectors of the Valencian Region. She explained to us the criteria used for the companies within the platform as well as the next steps from the road map:
Phase 1: IDENTIFICATION AND GEOLOCATION. Census of all innovative and “driver” companies. 2.
Phase 2: CHARACTERIZATION OF THE COMPANIES included in the Map.
Phase 3: REVITALIZATION
To finalise the meeting Maria Roca and the FundingBox team held held a live Q&A poll. They answered questions from the participants regarding regional support digital transformation of manufacturing, the different funding types in the regions, policies measures and funding that are missed in the regions, the best tools to support cross border cooperations, etc.
The outcomes of the polls were:
Innovation vouchers, EDRF grants, and regional funds are the most used funding types in the regions to support digital transformations.
Horizon Europe is one of the most relevant funding types in the regions.
SMEs miss other critical policies measures and fundings, such as cascade funding, digital funding, test before investing and less bureaucracy.
The best tools for cross border are: I3 call, brokerages, networking and mentoring.
DIHs and EDIHs could best support digitalisation in the regions through more financial and consulting support, funding experiments, guiding SMEs and sharing practices.
The Regional Authorities could provide better support in the digitalisation transition by connecting stakeholders such as DIHs and facilitating regional information regarding specific funding for digitalisation at regional, national and EU level.
We hope you enjoyed the session!
Click here to visit the Digitalisation Working Group Website
