How it Played Out

smE-MPOWER is the result of an EU funded project for SME support and
was formed of a committed community of coaches from 10 countries.  It was financed through the Economic and Technological Intelligence project scheme within the EU’s 6th Research Framework Programme and ran from 2005 to 2007.

During its course the project addressed about 10.000 and mobilised more than 1.000 SMEs towards collaboration within the FP7 framework. About 300 SMEs were coached and about half of them participated in nearly 50 submitted proposals, most of them SME driven.

About 50 regional awareness workshops and involvement in about 10 international conferences helped to spread the word widely. The final conference drew about 80 participants from innovation policy and SME intermediaries all over Europe. Follow the presentations of experts and practitioners in open innovation here.

smE-MPOWER was personally congratulated by the European Commission’s Head of Unit SME, Dr. Bernd Reichert, for its achievements and its path-breaking innovativeness.