The EC has within its Survey of 2011, carried out on request of DG Enterprise and Industry (DG EI), realized that the main barriers of innovation in the eyes of the SMEs, are lack of financial resources and inability to manage innovation process. Since different understandings of the term "Innovation Management System" (IMS) have been noted the EC has supported European Committee for Standardization to provide the stakeholders with a unified definition of relevant parts in the IMS. According to this definition the most important parts of IMS include company's innovation processes from idea generation to innovation result, but also leadership, management skills and other enabling factors, like the ability to cooperate with third parties like RD partners, clients, and suppliers. The objective of this project in Slovenia is to enable SMEs to bridge the knowledge gap in innovation management, get aware of shortages and improve their internal innovation management system and/or focus on achieving market value with their inventions. The consortium will achieve this objectives with providing: 1.) Enhancing the Innovation Management Capacity of SMEs. The beneficiaries will receive diagnostic of their innovation system based on the standardized IMP³rove tool. This will lead to the formation of tailored action plan to improve the SME’s capacity to better manage innovation. 2.) Key Account Managers – Facilitators for the H2020 SME Instrument. Key Account Managers will identify and source appropriate lead coaches (from predefined pool of coaches), facilitate linking the SMEs to innovation support services and to support the lead coach in delivering services to the SME. The SME Instrument participants will receive the most appropriate services and support to enhance the probability of successful exploitation of the innovation project and to leave a footprint for the future sustainable growth of these beneficiaries.

In recent years the manufacturing sector has been one of the stable pillars of European economic growth and therefore prosperity. Photonics, as one of the advanced technologies for industry identified by the European Union, is a relevant deep technology that plays a key role in supporting and innovating the manufacturing ecosystem. On the European landscape several initiatives exist that facilitate cooperation on Photonics, ranging from the public private partnership Photonics21, to European wide clusters like EPIC association and the Digital innovation hub Photonhub Europe. However, they focus mainly on support for individual organisations and while there is also the S3 platform partnership on Photonics, there is no support available to coordinate interregional cooperation in deeptech with the focus on Photonics for manufacturing. Goal of the project is the establishment of an interregional deeptech innovation support network for manufacturing with the focus on Photonics. Output will be a joint supra-regional strategy with best-practice measures for the use of Deeptech/Photonics to support European missions and company competitiveness. This strategy will be co-developed by relevant regional stakeholders from the government body, research, industry and makers communities and include tangible steps to use the complementarities and cooperation potential of the regions to ensure cross-fertilisation.

The EC has within its Survey of 2011, carried out on request of DG Enterprise and Industry (DG EI), realized that the main barriers of innovation in the eyes of the SMEs, are lack of financial resources and inability to manage innovation process. Since different understandings of the term "Innovation Management System" (IMS) have been noted the EC has supported European Committee for Standardization to provide the stakeholders with a unified definition of relevant parts in the IMS. According to this definition the most important parts of IMS include company's innovation processes from idea generation to innovation result, but also leadership, management skills and other enabling factors, like the ability to cooperate with third parties like RD partners, clients, and suppliers. The objective of this project in Slovenia is to enable SMEs to bridge the knowledge gap in innovation management, get aware of shortages and improve their internal innovation management system and/or focus on achieving market value with their inventions. The consortium will achieve this objectives with providing: 1.) Enhancing the Innovation Management Capacity of SMEs. The beneficiaries will receive diagnostic of their innovation system based on the standardized IMP³rove or/and SMEMPower tool. This will lead to the formation of tailored action plan to improve the SME’s capacity to better manage innovation. 2.) Key Account Managers – Facilitators for the H2020 SME Instrument, FET Open and FTI coaches. Key Account Managers will identify and source appropriate lead coaches (from predefined pool of coaches), facilitate linking the SMEs to innovation support services and to support the lead coach in delivering services to the SME. The SME Instrument, FET Open and/or FTI beneficiaries will receive the most appropriate services and support to enhance the probability of successful exploitation of the innovation project and to leave a footprint for the future sustainable growth of these beneficiaries.

The EC has within its Survey of 2011, carried out on request of DG Enterprise and Industry (DG EI), realized that the main barriers of innovation in the eyes of the SMEs, are lack of financial resources and inability to manage innovation process. Since different understandings of the term "Innovation Management System" (IMS) have been noted the EC has supported European Committee for Standardization to provide the stakeholders with a unified definition of relevant parts in the IMS. According to this definition the most important parts of IMS include company's innovation processes from idea generation to innovation result, but also leadership, management skills and other enabling factors, like the ability to cooperate with third parties like RD partners, clients, and suppliers. The objective of this project in Slovenia is to enable SMEs to bridge the knowledge gap in innovation management, get aware of shortages and improve their internal innovation management system and/or focus on achieving market value with their inventions. The consortium will achieve this objectives with providing: 1.) Enhancing the Innovation Management Capacity of SMEs. The beneficiaries will receive diagnostic of their innovation system based on the standardized IMP³rove tool. This will lead to the formation of tailored action plan to improve the SME’s capacity to better manage innovation. 2.) Key Account Managers – Facilitators for the H2020 SME Instrument. Key Account Managers will identify and source appropriate lead coaches (from predefined pool of coaches), facilitate linking the SMEs to innovation support services and to support the lead coach in delivering services to the SME. The SME Instrument participants will receive the most appropriate services and support to enhance the probability of successful exploitation of the innovation project and to leave a footprint for the future sustainable growth of these beneficiaries.

The EC has within its Survey of 2011, carried out on request of DG Enterprise and Industry (DG EI), realized that the main barriers of innovation in the eyes of the SMEs, are lack of financial resources and inability to manage innovation process. Since different understandings of the term "Innovation Management System" (IMS) have been noted the EC has supported European Committee for Standardization to provide the stakeholders with a unified definition of relevant parts in the IMS. According to this definition the most important parts of IMS include company's innovation processes from idea generation to innovation result, but also leadership, management skills and other enabling factors, like the ability to cooperate with third parties like RD partners, clients, and suppliers. The objective of this project in Slovenia is to enable SMEs to bridge the knowledge gap in innovation management, get aware of shortages and improve their internal innovation management system and/or focus on achieving market value with their inventions. The consortium will achieve this objectives with providing: 1.) Enhancing the Innovation Management Capacity of SMEs. The beneficiaries will receive diagnostic of their innovation system based on the standardized IMP³rove tool. This will lead to the formation of tailored action plan to improve the SME’s capacity to better manage innovation. 2.) Key Account Managers – Facilitators for the H2020 SME Instrument. Key Account Managers will identify and source appropriate lead coaches (from predefined pool of coaches), facilitate linking the SMEs to innovation support services and to support the lead coach in delivering services to the SME. The SME Instrument participants will receive the most appropriate services and support to enhance the probability of successful exploitation of the innovation project and to leave a footprint for the future sustainable growth of these beneficiaries.