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.

"Launched in November 2018 and over its 24 months of duration, the project had the priority objective of experimenting in the education chain (secondary and tertiary education and training segments), the application of new training methods and teaching methodologies focused on the use of virtual reality (augmented, extended, mixed), in order to assess the innovation of these technologies and related forms of learning, both in terms of innovation of curricula and benefits for trainees. The constant collaboration between the partners and the direct involvement of stakeholders, first of all, the companies of the aerospace supply chains of the different partner countries (Italy, Spain, Poland, Norway), has allowed to obtain all the expected results. The intellectual products developed, are the following: 1) COMPARED RESEARCH ON KEY COMPETENCE FACTORS IN THE AEROSPACE SECTOR: the output aims to systematize the results of the needs analysis carried out in the field in the different countries of the partnership, through the administration of a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews to HR managers of companies in the sector. The action of qualitative analysis in the field has involved a total of 14 companies, Poland, 8 Italy, 5 Spain, 3 Norway. 2) REPERTORY OF GOOD PRACTICES ON THE USE OF TECHNICAL COMPETENCES: the digitization of production processes, as well as the innovation of production techniques in the field of advanced mechanics and aerospace, require the availability on the market of skills and profiles able to metabolize and govern these innovations. This also implies the need for the actors of the training system to increase their ability and speed of response in providing training proposals that meet and anchor the demands of economic operators. The repertoire of good practices represents a common and available knowledge base to enhance experiences carried out in different educational contexts, through immersive training that can constitute a methodology capable of reducing the learning time of future ""professionals"" in the sector. 3) GUIDELINES FOR THE DESIGN, MANAGEMENT, EVALUATION OF TECHNICAL CURRICULAR TRAINING INTERVENTIONS THROUGH THE METHODOLOGY OF IMMERSIVE TRAINING: the guidelines will bring to value the results of the pilot training courses carried out by the partners with target groups of students, teachers and trainers in each country and within secondary and tertiary training courses. The output will be a milestone of the project also in a perspective of sharing and debate with operators, companies, institutional actors. In the European panorama, as well as in the Italian context, I-TRACE has been characterized by a strong innovation and originality, aimed at starting a joint reflection between VET providers, industrial leaders, companies, policy makers to assess the extent of innovation of the immersive training methodology and its possible applications in educational contexts at different levels of technical education."

INNCAT 2021 describes the services offered in the context of Horizon 2020 innovation support activities and the enhance European Innovation Council (EIC) pilot, with the objective of enhancing Catalan SMEs’ innovation management capacity. 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 SMEs: beneficiaries of the EIC 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 2020-2021), ACCIÓ is specialised in promoting innovation and internationalisation among SMEs and has implemented several successful programmes over the last 20 years. The experience obtained, especially since the implementation of the first INNCAT pilot in 2014, has given to our team of experts a deeper knowledge of these services. ACCIÓ proposes that a minimum of 110 services will be closed in the period of 2020-2021 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 the IMPR3ove methodology and Innovation Health Check (IHC) and have 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. For this period, the project will build on the experience acquired since 2014 to obtain more impact on cases.

The current proposal fully describes advising services to SMEs with the objective of increasing and accelerating the economic returns from innovation and proves ACCIÓ capacity to successfully deliver them. The services will be provided to two specific groups of enterprises: beneficiaries of the SME instrument, FTI, FET-Open; and SMEs with significant innovation activities and a high potential for internationalisation. ACCIÓ, as the Enterprise Europe Network Catalan node coordinator, is specialised in promoting innovation and internationalisation among SMEs and has implemented several successful programmes over the last 20 years. For instance, since 2014 INNCAT has provided advice services with IMP3rove, Innovation Health Check (IHC) and KAM methodologies. For next year, 2019, INNCAT will close a minimum of 49 KAM and EIMC cases of mentoring to enhance the innovation management capacity of SMEs; it is an increase of 22.5% compared to the services planned per year in the current INNCAT1718 project. The involved staff is fully committed to deliver the foreseen cases using the above mentioned methodologies and have a broad and extensive expertise in innovation, business support and management services. Moreover, 6 of the involved 8 staff members already participate in the implementation of INNCAT1718 for the delivery of KAM and EIMC cases. Therefore, they are fully capable to implement the described services and successfully advise Catalan SMEs in 2019. Additionally, a majority of staff members also offering EEN standard network services will enhance synergies and ensure the principle of the client centric approach.

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 July-December 2014 with IMPRove 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 56 services will be provided in the period of 2015-2016 for enhancing the innovation management capacity of SMEs. The proposed staff is fully committed to deliver the proposed services and is trained in IMPR3ove methodology and have a broad and extensive expertise in innovation and business support and, management. Moreover, 6 of the proposed 8 staff members have intervened in the implementation of INNCAT for the delivery of KAM and IMPR3ove services during 2014. Therefore they are fully capable to deliver the services described and successfully advise SMEs.