RInnoValleys is a project that aims to address the challenges and disparities faced by EU regions in accessing the European Innovation Council (EIC) and fully leveraging its benefits for their innovation ecosystems. The project focuses on creating a transnational joint action plan to enhance the capabilities of these regions to connect with the EIC ecosystem and foster inclusive, gender-diverse, and connected innovation ecosystems in line with the New European Innovation Agenda. The project adopts the Quadruple Helix Model, the participatory approach, peer learning and best practice sharing, joint transnational action plan development, capacity building, and implementation support, communication, and dissemination to achieve its objectives. The project will engage stakeholders from government, academia, industry, and civil society in each region and cover 5 EU countries, including rural areas, ensuring gender equality objectives. The project's methodology aims to ensure that the solutions developed are relevant, inclusive, and responsive to the unique needs and priorities of the participating regions. By combining these concepts, models, and assumptions, the RInnoValleys project methodology aims to address the challenges faced by EU regions in accessing the EIC, foster collaboration and knowledge exchange, and enhance the innovation capabilities of the regions. Ultimately, the project seeks to create a more cohesive, connected, and balanced innovation ecosystem within the European Union, ensuring that all regions can more equally thrive and prosper in the global innovation landscape.

Europe is facing major economic challenges that require an ambitious economic policy for the 21st century. The EU has set out its vision for Europe's social market economy in the Europe 2020 strategy, which aims at confronting our structural weaknesses through progress in three mutually reinforcing priorities : • smart growth, based on knowledge and innovation, • sustainable growth, promoting a more resource efficient, greener and competitive economy, • inclusive growth, fostering a high employment economy delivering economic, social and territorial cohesion. MANUNET III, as a continuation of MANUNET II, is aligned with the European priorities and pretends to create a smart sustainable growth in the European manufacturing sector by coordinating the research and innovation efforts in the field of advanced manufacturing with a special focus in the key areas of new production processes, adaptive manufacturing systems and technologies for the factory of the future. The project will also reinforce the territorial cohesion through an extended collaboration network. The consortium pretends to respond to the actual economic crisis by promoting the transnational research, innovation and entrepreneurship in the industrial sector, especially in the SMEs, which are the backbone of Europe's economy. Through this strategic and integrated approach to innovation in advanced manufacturing, MANUNET III pretends to maximise European, national and regional research and innovation potential.

Horizon 2020 call “Enhancing the innovation management capacity of SMEs” proposes advising services to SMEs with the objective of increasing and accelerating the economic returns from innovation. The current proposal fully describes these services and proves ACCIÓ’s capacity to successfully deliver them. The services will be provided to two specific groups of enterprises: beneficiaries of the SME instrument and, SMEs with significant innovation activities and a high potential for internationalisation. As the current coordinator of the Catalan node of the EEN (also for 2015-2020), ACCIÓ is specialised in promoting innovation and internationalisation among SMEs and has implemented several successful programmes over the last 20 years; for instance it is currently providing advise services for the period 2015-2016 with IMPRove, Innovation Health Check (IHC) and KAM methodologies with an EU financed project called INNCAT. The experience obtained, especially since the implementation of INNCAT, has given to our team of experts a deeper knowledge of these services and therefore we are proposing that a minimum of 80 services will be provided in the period of 2017-2018 for enhancing the innovation management capacity of SMEs. It is 42% more services than INNCAT1516. The proposed staff is fully committed to deliver the proposed services and is trained in IMPR3ove methodology and Innovation Health Check (IHC) and have a broad and extensive expertise in innovation and business support and, management. Moreover, 6 of the proposed 9 staff members have intervened in the implementation of INNCAT for the delivery of KAM and IMPR3ove services during 2014-2016. Therefore they are fully capable to deliver the services described and successfully advise SMEs.

TARGET will deliver a pan-European serious gaming platform featuring new tools, techniques and content for training and assessing skills and competencies of SCA (Security Critical Agents - counterterrorism units, border guards, first responders (police, firefighters, ambulance services civil security agencies, critical infrastructure operators). Mixed-reality experiences will immerse trainees at task, tactical and strategic command levels with scenarios such as tactical firearms events, asset protection, mass demonstrations, cyber-attacks and CBRN incidents. Trainees will use real / training weaponry, radio equipment, command & control software, decision support tools, real command centres, vehicles. Social and ethical content will be pervasive. Unavailable real-source information will be substituted by AVR (Augmented / Virtual Reality - multimedia, synthetic role players). Near-real, all-encompassing and non-linear experiences will enable high degrees of dynamics and variability. The distributed Open TARGET Platform will provide extensible standards driven methods to integrate simulation techniques and AVR technology with existing SCA training equipment and be customisable to local languages, national legal contexts, organisational structures, established standard operational procedures and legacy IT systems. At key training points real-time benchmarking of individuals and teams will be instrumented. TARGET will support inter-agency SCA exercising across the EU and act as a serious gaming repository and brokerage facility for authorised agencies to share training material and maximise reuse and efficiency in delivering complex exercises. TARGET, combining training, content and technology expertise, will be co-led by users and technologists, mainly SMEs. 2 successively developed and trialled versions of the TARGET Solution will support user-technologist dialogue. The TARGET Ecosystem will enable sustainable impact, commercial uptake and synergies at EU level.

Horizon 2020 call “Enhancing the innovation management of SMEs” proposes the offering of mentoring and coaching services to SMEs with the objective of increasing and accelerating the economic returns from innovation. The current proposal describes in detail the services focused on enhancing innovation management capacities of SMEs and proves ACCIÓ’s capacity to successfully deliver such services. The service will be provided to two specific groups of companies: beneficiaries of the SME instrument and, SMEs with significant innovation activities and a high potential for internationalisation. The minimum number of 7-day packages to be delivered are 20, although depending on the number of beneficiaries of the SME instrument up to 32 7-day packages could be developed. As coordinator of the Catalan node of the Enterprise Europe Network, ACCIÓ offers a wide range of innovation services to SMEs. ACCIÓ is specialised in promoting innovation and internationalisation among SMEs and has implemented several successful programmes over the last 20 years. In 2013 ACCIÓ's innovation advisors visited 100 SMEs for the first time, managed more than 4.000 expression of interest for technology transfer or partner search and reached more than 3.000 people through its monthly newsletter “EU R&D&I opportunities”. The proposed INNCAT team is fully committed in the delivery of the project, is trained in IMP3rove methodology and have a broad and extensive expertise in innovation and business support and management.