Publishable summary Project context and objectives Many studies and projects have highlighted the problems faced by innovative, growing SMEs in developing or acquiring new technologies and exploiting them in new products and services INTRASME addresses a central point of the European manufacturing capability offered by SMEs of different EU Regions targeting the main goal of how to bring more efficiently and quicker innovative products and services to the market. The primary objectives fall into 3 strands as described below, targeting the innovation process in 1) EU-funded Framework Programme research projects, 2) SMEs and 3) establishing a selected number of Innovation Networks involving, in particular, regions of Europe where links between actors in the innovation chain are weak.. All 3 strands will focus on three selected cases from the Transport sector: 1. Road Transport Sector: Low Carbon Vehicles Electric Vehicles and Alternative Fuel Vehicles (cars, buses, bikes, vans, trucks, etc) which need enabling and underlying new technologies such as power electronics, batteries, lightweight materials, electric motors, vehicle design, aerodynamic modelling, sensing, infotainment, grid integration. 2. Air Transport Sector: Light Aircraft including Personal Flying Vehicles Low Carbon Solutions including Electric Aircraft, which need similar enabling and underlying new technologies to (i). 3. Smart Mobility (End-End Journey Management) for all Transport modes, helping the seamless movement of people and goods to be more efficient through integrated ticketing and shared information systems with other forms of transport, including logistics. INTRASME aims at improving the capacity and capability of European SMEs to more rapidly develop and implement products and services in the low carbon transportation and smart mobility sectors focusing on the changing role that SMEs have on innovation mechanisms for the transport sector. The main objectives are to: Identify the barriers transport SMEs meet accessing EU R&D programmes and provide guidance to help businesses transform results into products and services. Develop a package of guidance, case studies and support on-line to enable SMEs to take advantage of new market opportunities in technologies. Establish networks in and between EU regions through SME opportunity workshops to strength entrepreneurship and integration in supply chains. INTRASME will target a sub-set of EU R&D projects with significant involvement of SMEs in the low carbon transportation and smart mobility sectors. Exploitation plans will be developed for these projects, as well as guidelines for other projects. Support mechanisms will be developed and opportunities identified allowing SMEs to rapidly bring their innovations to market in the low carbon transportation and smart mobility sectors. Three Thematic Innovation Networks will be established to create a dynamic environment for entrepreneurship and innovation in those European regions where innovation links are weak. 1 P a g e
Work performed and main results achieved During the first year of the project, the worked performed was centred on 4 main areas: EU R&D projects and market impact analysis An analysis of the results of surveys of participants in R&D projects including SMEs and large organisations was performed. For the interviews we used a semi-structured approach to arrive at a set of recommendations to make EU R&D programmes more accessible and more effective at exploiting the innovations of SMEs. This task has examined the role and activities of SMEs in EU R&D Projects in Low Carbon Transport and Smart Mobility, the barriers they encounter and the strategies used to exploit their technology. A number of barriers identified by SMEs involved in EU R&D projects to developing and exploiting their innovations was identified. Best practice for overcoming innovation barriers was compared with the strategies used by organisations in the EU R&D projects, to identify the extent to which organisations develop appropriate exploitation plans for innovations they develop in these projects, the key deficiencies in their exploitation plans and the overall project exploitation plans that may hinder them, and how such deficiencies can best be addressed. The advantages and disadvantages of participation in EU R&D projects for SMEs have been identified and a check-list provided to help SMEs decide if participation in collaborative R&D is appropriate for their business and its state of maturity. Guidelines have been developed for SMEs to maximise the value they can get from participating in EU R&D projects and for exploiting their innovations developed in the projects. Finally, a list of high potential impact projects was established. This was drawn from a webbased portfolio of projects from the European Green Cars Initiative PPP, Calls 2010 2012 and other EC websites. INTRASME partners also complemented the list by suggesting EU R&D projects (on-going and finished) that could make useful case studies for understanding the barriers faced by innovative SMEs. The full list of projects was analysed to identify those with significant innovative SME involvement, either as an important partner supplying technology or in a few cases acting as project coordinator. The SMEs short-listed for interviews were contacted by the Partners, and interviews were carried out either by personal visits or by telephone. Some SMEs made specific requests for INTRAME support, that they felt would help them further exploit their technologies. These have been addressed where possible on an individual basis. A set of INTRASME actions has been identified and guidelines developed to help address the SME barriers to innovation in the second year of the project. Many of the proposed actions are already underway or being considered. Opportunities from new forms of transport This group of activities investigated and developed market demand forecasts of electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles based on market trends and technical challenges. In addition, the consortium analysed the evolution of the market to understand its impact on SMEs and related business opportunities in the overall EU context. The main methodologies used were desk based research of prominent forecasts, short and long interviews with SMEs and a questionnaire. 2 P a g e
In order to be able to develop some case studies, interviews were conducted with 57 SMEs with the support of INTRASME partners and the local BICs. A Case Study Guideline (CSG) was developed to guide the selection of those SMEs that could potentially be a relevant case study. The same CSG provided a proposed structure and guideline for writing the individual case studies. To ensure a representative poll of case studies that could serve for these purposes, selection criteria had to be defined to choose which of the interviewed SMEs could serve as a case study. Based on these criteria, twenty six case studies were developed The report on the new forms of transport argued the case of a changing value chain in the automotive industry. This is because the key components of the electric vehicle power train are significantly different from the ones of an internal combustion engine. In many cases the mainstream automotive companies do not have internally technological knowhow of the electric vehicle power train. Therefore mainstream automotive companies are attempting to capture value of the emerging EV value chain through the development of strategic partnerships, SMEs included. The consequences of this are that we found SMEs not only developing electric vehicle technology with mainstream automotive companies, but without them as well, and not only developing electric vehicle component technology, but the full electric vehicle. Furthermore we have found evidence of SMEs being supported from large companies coming from sectors outside the mainstream automotive sector. This is because these larger companies from other sectors see the opportunity of entering the electric vehicle sector (not only cars but in a broader definition), and they see SMEs ability to move faster as suitable strategy to step in. Innovation mechanisms This group of activities served to act as a mechanism to identify the role of SMEs in EU R&D programmes. Furthermore, the purpose was to identify how SMEs acquire technologies to identify barriers encountered by the SMEs to fully exploit technology that has been developed within the low carbon vehicle and smart mobility sector. In order to identify how SMEs acquire new technology a semi-structured questionnaire acted as a conduit to determine the mechanisms utilised by companies to acquire new technology within the low carbon vehicle and smart mobility sectors. In total 57 SMEs were interviewed, the data was collated and analysed from the interviews identifying a number of key drivers for the development of technology by SMEs; some of these drivers were very much internal to the SME involved in developing the technology, such as investment in R&D activity to develop new products for identified market needs and the SME management team who are key drivers of product development and innovation activity. The results of the survey identified how SMEs acquired new technology and the key drivers behind the justification for the physical presence of the company in relation to supply chain suppliers, as well as the drivers for the development of new technology, products and/or service for this particular sector. Further activity within this area also examined the role of SMEs, the barriers that they encounter and the specific strategies implemented to exploit their technology. Specific criteria were established to ensure that the survey reviewed the correct SME type and previously funded projects within the EU R&D programme, enhancing the previous experience of IBC. The results of the survey provide good coverage of the identified sectors for the study. 3 P a g e
The activity further surveyed SMEs in order to analyse the capability and capacity of those that are engaged in innovation and went further on to identify the processes required to commercialise products. The identified barriers have not only allowed the project to suggest practical measures that could be implemented to help and support SMEs overcome these barriers, it has also identified what other mechanisms, outside the scope of the project, could effectively be linked to in order to further support the SMEs fully exploit their innovations. This activity has led to a set of recommendations on making the EU R&D&I more attractive to SMEs. It is clear that a stimulus is required to encourage and increase the number of SMEs that innovate within this industry sector. The specific mechanisms are proposed in detail as to how they might be utilised to fully engage with the SME in regards to EU R&D&I programmes. These recommendations / mechanisms have been identified specifically to overcome the barriers, but to encourage active participation and engagement with the SME community to ensure that the they are able to improve the technology related products for the low carbon vehicle and smart mobility sector. Innovation initiatives and linkages with Regions of New Member States Based on interviews, regional SWOT analysis reports on regions with weak innovation links and selection and definition of the additional pilot region was performed. Apart from INTRASME 3 partners Region: Warsaw (Poland), West Midlands (UK), Piedmont (Italy), an additional pilot region Ruse (Bulgaria) was selected. Moreover, in order to get a good practice example for comparison purposes, a recognized innovative country in the EU, Finland, has been selected and involved as well. Finland offers interesting lessons in terms of innovation policies and, in the context of the low carbon transportation and Smart Mobility sectors, important and pathfinding National programmes have been developed which represent interesting benchmark opportunities for the INTRASME partner regions. The SWOT analysis examined the relative strengths and weaknesses of innovation capabilities, resources, support mechanisms and operational methods of INTRASME partner regions and selected regions, which has achieved the first objective. Based on data collected by the partners and local BICs in the three partner regions (UK/ West Midlands, Italy/ Piedmont and Poland/ Warsaw) and by the BICs in Romania, the User Requirement Document (URD) for a support platform and best practice toolkit has been defined. The URD has been translated into a System Requirements Document (SRD) detailing key elements (technical and content related) of the INTRASME online support platform. The Excel document developed for the URD has been further developed to simplify the definition of the System Requirements answering the needs expressed by European SMEs in the target regions. A set of online and offline actions have been identified and the online ones have been gathered and organized into the SRD. The document presents the structure of the platform and the tools and best practices identified so far. This work has achieved the second and third objectives. Based on the SRD, regional SWOT analysis and best practices, Recommendations to support innovation links for developing new transport products and services through pilots in selected MS regions have been produced and a plan for a series pilot activity to develop innovation links in the partner regions and the selected region in Bulgaria has been made, which gives the methodological framework within which future activities and tools will be shaped, designed and created. 4 P a g e
Expected results INTRASME will develop a series of activities and tools that will serve low carbon transportation and the smart mobility sectors European SMEs: Identification and analysis of barriers to exploiting innovations developed in EU R&D projects Development of guidelines for exploitation plans to help project partners disseminate and exploit EU innovative products and results into the global market Analysis of how fledging SMEs acquire and exploit new technologies Organization of events, road-shows, workshops, demo-sessions aiming at the dissemination and exploitation of products and services developed in EU R&D projects Development of case studies and identification of opportunities for SMEs to rapidly bring innovations to the market Market Opportunity Workshops and SME Opportunity Workshops Formation of thematic pan-european Innovation Networks gathering key actors of the innovation chain Development of an on-line platform and best practice toolbox supporting the Innovation Networks Policy workshop and event to validate and present project results. Project public website: www.intrasme.eu Partners: COVENTRY ENTERPRISES LTD, UK UNIVERSITY Contact Information: RICERCA SUL SISTEMA ENERGETICO - RSE SPA POLITECHNIKA WARSZAWSKA ID TECHEX LIMITED INTERACTIVE FULLY ELECTRICAL VEHICLES SRL European Business and Innovation Centre Network MIRA LTD INNOVATION BRIDGE CONSULTING Eleni Anoyrkati OPTIMISM coordinator Coventry University Enterprises Ltd International Business & Technology Transfer The TechnoCentreCoventry University Technology Park Puma Way, Coventry CV1 2TT Mobile: +44(0)7974984863 Fax: +44(0)24 7623 6024 Email: e.anoyrkati@coventry.ac.uk 5 P a g e