On 18 November, under the chairmanship of Martin Godel, Chair of the OECD Working Party on SME and Entrepreneurship (WPSMEE), OECD and INSME held an important webinar to celebrate the 20thAnniversary of the OECD Bologna Charter on SMEs.
INSME is pleased to welcome a new member to enlarge the Network outreach: the Bulgarian Development Bank (BDB). DBD's mission is aimed at implementing the state policy in the Bulgarian economy with the main focus on supporting small and medium-sized enterprises.
The 3rdPolicy Lab, held on 25th November, was a unique occasion to explore the Innov Invest Fund implemented by the Central Guarantee Fund (CCG) to overcome the difficulties related to SME’s financial needs.
The Executive Board of European Entrepreneurs CEA–PME met Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis. The meeting was an occasion to point out the needs of SMEs in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted the world economy, and it has redefined CEOs' leadership around the world in order to manage a remarkable level of uncertainty. Abdulaziz Al Khalifa, interviewed by KPMG, unveiled the strategy adopted by his organisation.
The ITC SheTrades, together with the Small Enterprise Development Agency – SEDA and the Republic of South Africa’s Department for Small Business Development (DSBD), have developed the SheTradesZA Hub to enhance women economic empowerment.
The Third session of the WIPO Conversation on IP and Artificial Intelligence (AI) was held with the participation of stakeholders coming from more than 130 countries.
Calls and opportunities
Strategic Alliances for the uptake of advanced technologies by SMEs – A call to foster the use of new technologies by the European SMEs
The European Commission launched a 5 million call for proposals to maximise SMEs use of technologies. In a post-Covid-19 environment, in order to contribute to the EU’s recovery package final goal, a strategic alliance between tech-savvy SMEs and traditional SMEs is necessary to enhance the spread of advanced technologies and to boost economic recovery and competitiveness.
The EC aims at developing two different pilot projects to promote alliances within industrial cluster organisations, SME collaboration and technology adoption.
Proposals should contribute:
to arouse the collaboration between EU businesses in order to increase industrial competences and resilience;
to enhance the use of advance technologies to expand the market potential;
to exploit the collaboration between the cluster organisations and their technology centres;
to develop collaboration among different clusters from the same industrial ecosystem.
The deadline for this call is the 2nd of February 2021.
Co-financing of public procurement of innovation consortia – Increasing the access of European SMEs to the public procurement of innovation (PPI) market
The EC call for proposals to improve SMEs' access to the Union Market in the Public Procurement Innovation's area aims to compensate the absence of demand in the demand-supply chain of SMEs for innovative products or services, by letting the public sector use its purchasing power to act as an early adopter. In order to be eligible, a proposal must be submitted by a consortium composed of at least two public buyers from two different eligible countries.
The evaluation process foresees two stages. The first deadline is 19th January 2021.
The European Commission has adopted its 2021 work programme with an emphasis on new legislative initiatives to be undertaken during the upcoming year. Although the 2020 work programme has been only partially followed and achieved, the crisis also presented opportunities to be exploited in the innovation and technology sectors.
