The AISS4SME project aims at offering new services to enhance the innovation management capacities of luxembourg SMEs. 2 target group of SMEs will be address : first, the beneficiaries of the SME instrument and, second, innovative SMEs. This proposal is a response to the topic “INNOSUP-2014: Establishing services “Enhancing the innovation management capacity of SMEs” in the Enterprise Europe Network”, and concerns the set up of coaching and mentoring services for SMEs. It’s our confidence that the AISS4SME proposal is 100% in line with the challenge and scope defined by the EC. Moreover, by pursuing the defined strategic objectives, the project will automatically produce the expected overall impact of: • Enhancing the commercial potential and impact of SME participation in the dedicated Horizon 2020 instrument by ensuring that the project is aligned with and developed as an integral part of the company's innovation strategy, • Achieving tangible organizational change and improved results, • Improving the skill's levels of managers, leaving a legacy such that the SME is better able to overcome the barriers to growth post-Horizon 2020 participation.

The AISS4SME project aims at offering new services to enhance the innovation management capacities of Luxembourg SMEs. 2 target group of SMEs will be address : first, the beneficiaries of the SME instrument and, second, innovative SMEs. This proposal is a response to the Consultation of Enterprise Europe Network partners on the work programme for H-2020 activities H2020-EEN-SGA4-20120-2021 “Enhancing the innovation management capacity of SMEs” in the Enterprise Europe Network”, and concerns the set up of coaching and mentoring services for SMEs. It’s our confidence that the AISS4SME proposal is 100% in line with the challenge and scope defined by the EC. Moreover, by pursuing the defined strategic objectives, the project will automatically produce the expected overall impact of: • Enhancing the commercial potential and impact of SME participation in the dedicated Horizon 2020 instrument by ensuring that the project is aligned with and developed as an integral part of the company's innovation strategy, • Achieving tangible organizational change and improved results, • Improving the skill's levels of managers, leaving a legacy such that the SME is better able to overcome the barriers to growth post-Horizon 2020 participation.

The digital transformation of EU business and society presents enormous growth potential for Europe. It is estimated that digital technologies, such as Big Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence or the Internet of Things, have the potential to add 1.5 million jobs to the EU’s digital economy, and that SMEs can grow two to three times faster when they integrate digital technologies into their business models. Nevertheless, on the one hand, SMEs are not currently taking full advantage of these advanced technologies because they usually lack orientation, know-how and hands-on solutions in line with their current business, and on the other hand, digitalisation services in too many occasions do not take into account the rapid changing innovation ecosystem and the emerging of new technologies. The objective of DigiJourney is to enable the participating innovation agencies to exchange knowledge, know-how, and good practices on advanced methodologies and tools for digitalisation assessment to SMEs and customised support services. In particular, based on the Twinning+ methodology, the project aims to cover peer learning activities for three digitalisation approaches and the design of a digitalisation journey for SMEs, which will facilitate all innovation agencies to improve their digitalisation support services adapted to their specific national/regional contexts, and will allow SMEs to get the right digital tools to gain competitiveness. This peer-learning and peer-review scheme has been developed based on each partner's identified competences in advanced digitalisation services for SMEs. DigiJourney will therefore contribute to the specific challenge of increasing SMEs support programmes and the satisfaction of them with the support provided, through a joint learning effort of the three participating partners and the elaboration of a suitable Design Options Paper that will be shared with other EU innovation agencies and networks, and with national and EU policy-makers.

Design is a key driver in creating new products and services that are attractive to customers, and can make a business stand out among the competition. However, the lack of design management skills is a significant barrier to the wider adoption and integration of design into Europe’s businesses. As stated in the Innovation Union Flagship Initiative, although some European countries are world leaders in design, others lack a robust design infrastructure and design capability. This systemic gap has largely gone unnoticed but must now be tackled. Innovation agencies should tackle this gap by supporting and promoting design driven innovation programmes and services. The overall aim of Design Shots project is to use the experience, the tools, the capacity and the partners’ knowledge in order to address a common innovation support challenge namely to promote the integration of design driven innovation to smes through the creation of tailor made “design driven innovation support programmes” for private sector. The Peer learning activity will serve to learn from the best and to share good and bad practices in design driven innovation support services for smes. The realized Design Options Paper will serve as a “guide” or a “handbook” to other agencies and business support centres to provide similar and/or more focused services/support/ programmes on design driven innovation.

The AISS4SME project aims at offering new services to enhance the innovation management capacities of luxembourg SMEs. 2 target group of SMEs will be address : first, the beneficiaries of the SME instrument and, second, innovative SMEs. This proposal is a response to the Consultation of Enterprise Europe Network partners on the work programme for 2019 H-2020 activities H2020-EEN-SGA3-2019 “Enhancing the innovation management capacity of SMEs” in the Enterprise Europe Network”, and concerns the set up of coaching and mentoring services for SMEs. It’s our confidence that the AISS4SME proposal is 100% in line with the challenge and scope defined by the EC. Moreover, by pursuing the defined strategic objectives, the project will automatically produce the expected overall impact of: • Enhancing the commercial potential and impact of SME participation in the dedicated Horizon 2020 instrument by ensuring that the project is aligned with and developed as an integral part of the company's innovation strategy, • Achieving tangible organizational change and improved results, • Improving the skill's levels of managers, leaving a legacy such that the SME is better able to overcome the barriers to growth post-Horizon 2020 participation.