COOPERATION THEMES
INNO-DEAL Project aims to create long-term cooperation among managers of financing schemes and programmes for support of innovative small and medium enterprises (SME). The focus is on start-up and spin-off companies and on trans-national cooperation of EU regions. In order to achieve the project’s goal two Trans – regional workshops were organized: in Vienna (10 – 11 April 2008; Newsletter 1, and Rome (14 – 15 October 2008; Newsletter 2.
Based on the expressed interest of managers from 12 EU regions the INNO-DEAL Consortium identified five cooperation themes:
1. Loan Guarantee Scheme as a help to access to credit for new and start-up companies
2. Integration of services for spin-off creation and internationalization
3. Matching between European SME, Business Angels and/or Venture Capital
4. Trans-regional cooperation and innovation in the environmental sector
Cooperation Themes were presented at the final conference of the INNO-DEAL Project on 2 July 2009 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In line with the themes and objectives of the European Year of Creativity and Innovation, INNO-DEAL final conference stressed the importance of creativity and innovation for the SMEs; one of the sessions was focused on the opportunities of collaboration in creative and digital media sector.
Before the end of the conference 29 managers of financial schemes signed five Cooperation Agreements. With signing they expressed their willingness to collaborate beyond the end of the INNO-DEAL project.
Slovene organizations signing Cooperation Agreements:
o Ljubljana University Incubator
On Friday 3 July 2009 the first working sessions of signatories of Cooperation Agreements took place in the Technology Park Ljubljana. As some of the Cooperation Agreements have already received expressions of interest by potential new members, these organizations (Slovene and foreign) also joined the sessions. Signatories agreed on future 6-months activities.
