Throughout the EU, the fragmentation of innovation ecosystems and the lack of interconnection between public national and regional agencies appear to be one of the main obstacles to securing support for the most promising SMEs. The GO-SME project responds to the need to provide financial support to SMEs and start-ups for the development of their innovative ideas. The aim of GO-SME is to share the best practices of participating research funding organisations (RFOs) and their mutual learning in designing programmes which would support SMEs and start-ups in an initial assessment of their innovative ideas so that they can progress to more advanced stages of innovation development. To achieve this aim, a combination of the following activities will be used: 1/learning from best practices already applied in support schemes for innovative SMEs and startups, 2/motivation of agencies from widening countries to design innovation support schemes for SMEs and start-ups, 3/cooperation in the setting up of comparable support schemes and sets of selection criteria, 4/sharing of best practices in the work with (international) experts and sharing of their pools 5/learning from best practices in providing coaching and mentoring services to innovative SMEs and start-ups 6/mutual opening up pools of coaches and mentors 7/offering of special services to running projects which will be selected as the most promising by an independent international panel. The added value of the project rests in its ambition to design national and regional programmes supporting innovative SMEs which could act as a pipeline for the EIC Accelerator and be part of the “plug-in” mechanism. At the same time, it can serve as a pilot project for a possible partnership co-funded from innovation ecosystems in the Horizon Europe programme.

The objective of the 3rd Concerted Action on the Energy Efficiency Directive (CA EED3) is to foster exchange of information and experience among Member States and other participating countries (Norway) with a view to facilitating the implementation of the Directive of 2018/2002 amending Directive 2012/27/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on energy efficiency (EED), including the implementation of the foreseen recast of this Directive . The Action follows on from the CA ESD, CA EED and CA-EED 2 which has helped MS with the interpretation of the legislation, the implementation options and support via detailed information and access to experts on mature policies and practices. The specific objectives of the Action are: • To enhance and structure the sharing of information and experiences from national implementation whilst promoting good practice concepts in activities to improve and strengthen MS implementation of the EED. • To encourage dialogue between MS on common approaches for the effective implementation of particular parts of the EED and synergies with RED and EPBD. • To complement the work of the EED Committee assisting the European Commission. The expected impact of the Action consists of a more harmonized approach and improved implementation of the EED in MS, as well as the transfer of good practices between countries and strengthened cross fertilisation with CA EPBD and CA RES. The CA EED3 brings together a unique group of experts and policy makers, it is the only informal group with full representation of all Member States and Norway and by its very nature provides MS, DG Energy and CINEA with a unique opportunity to communicate in an informal way on a technical level with relevant experts. The Concerted Action community has developed during the course of the CA ESD, CA EED and CA-EED 2 making it easy to find entry points in MS where without the Action contacts would be difficult. In turn the road is paved for bilateral cooperation.

The objective of the 2nd Concerted Action for the Energy Efficiency Directive (CA-EED 2) is to foster exchange of information and experience among Member States and other participating countries (Norway) with a view to facilitating to the implementation of the Directive 2012/27/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on energy efficiency (EED), including the implementation of the foreseen re-cast of this Directive. The specific objectives of the Action are: • To enhance and structure the sharing of information and experiences from national implementation whilst promoting good practice concepts in activities to improve and strengthen MS implementation of the EED. • To encourage dialogue between MS on common approaches for the effective implementation of particular parts of the EED. • To complement the work of the EED Committee assisting the European Commission. The expected impact of the Action consists of a more harmonized approach and improved implementation of the EED in all MS, as well as the transfer of good practices between countries. The objectives of the CA-EED 2 will be achieved by organising information exchange via amongst others 8 structured plenary meetings for coverage of the various topics. The meetings will allow experts from implementing bodies and ministries in the MS to discuss and exchange views, and aim to achieve as much convergence of objectives and methodologies as appropriate, avoiding redundant efforts and maximizing the benefits that can be obtained from the work otherwise required from individual MS working on their own. A large part of the work in the CA-EED 2 will be done in the sessions during the plenary meetings, focussing on good practice examples, but also through Working Groups that interact between the meetings and exchange of information through the forum on the CA-EED website. In order to structure the topics covered by the EED Expert Areas have been identified encompassing the main areas of the EED.