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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - INNOVOUCHER (INNOVOUCHER: IMPLEMENTING A EUROPEAN LABEL FOR INNOVATION VOUCHERS)

Teaser

Summary

The main objective of INNOVOUCHER project was to develop a European Label for Innovation Voucher programmes, by defining a new model of innovation voucher programme supporting the transnational exchange of innovation services and the procedures of the award of the European Label to those programmes complying with the defined model.
The project fosters the transnational collaboration based in innovation vouchers by increasing the range of services offered in the vouchers scheme to include innovation transnational services and the definition of a procedure of automatic recognition of foreign providers, thus increasing the access of SMEs to knowledge and technology from all across Europe.
The main objective of INNOVOUCHER project was to develop a new model of innovation voucher programme supporting the transnational exchange of innovation services in Europe.
The specific objectives were:
1. To set up a model of transnational collaboration based on innovation vouchers.
2. To develop a European Label for innovation voucher programmes.
3. To foster the European level of the innovation voucher programmes.
4. To spread the adoption of the improved model based on the empirical findings.
5. To increase and diversify the services provided to the SMEs in the innovation voucher programmes.
INNOVOUCHER project developed the new model for innovation voucher schemes, useful for regions without previous experience with innovation voucher schemes, willing to implement a scheme of these characteristics. A European Label was created to award voucher schemes fostering transnational innovation services exchange, and the award procedures and managing structures were recommended to enable its future implementation by the European Commission. An important conclusion of the project, that required a change in the approach during its implementation, was the need to engage regions with well-established innovation voucher schemes in the European Label. For those regions, a model of collaboration between existing voucher schemes was also developed. This collaboration model enables to comply with the requirements of the European Label, without renouncing to the existing voucher scheme in place.
The project tested the model of collaboration in a pilot call and delivered a final set of recommendations for the implementation of the European Label of innovation voucher schemes based on the results of the pilot.

Work performed

The first two years of the project were focused in the definition of the new model of innovation voucher scheme supporting the transnational services exchange, the design of a European Label to award to those voucher schemes and the model of collaboration for existing innovation voucher schemes.
During the third and fourth years of the project the design of a pilot call that helped validating the model previously defined and its implementation were the main tasks developed in the project.
Final results of the project are the new models of innovation voucher scheme and of collaboration between existing voucher schemes, and also a set of final recommendations for the future implementation of the European Label of innovation voucher schemes by the European Commission.
The results of the project, the new models, have been presented at several forums to reach the different European regions, who can implement them. They have been presented to the networks EURADA and ERRIN, which gather innovation agencies of the European regions. INNOVOUCHER project was also presented during the Open Days in 2015, at the Knowledge Exchange Platform for KETs event of 2016, at the Smart Regions 2.0 Conference in 2017. The project was also presented at the Spanish Association of Regional Development Agencies meeting in 2016. Most of the regions capable to exploit the results of INNOVOUCHER project have been covered during the roadshow of different events. Moreover, the audience of those events were mostly the practitioners in charge of innovation in the different European Regions, who are now aware of the results and the advantages of the project that they can now disseminate in their regions. At regional and national level, the project has also been disseminated among the companies located in the regions involved in the pilot scheme of the project such as: Region of Murcia in Spain, Region of Marche in Italy, Region of Flanders in Belgium, Romania and Poland, which can now transfer the benefits of that transnational exchange of innovation services into their businesses and also to the regional economy.

Final results

By developing a model of European label for innovation voucher programme and testing it, INNOVOUCHER project has contributed to the European policies (e.g. the Lisbon Strategy) for transforming EU industry from a resource intensive to a knowledge intensive and promoting the cohesion and collaboration between the different European Regions in achieving this transformation. It is relevant to the Innovation Union initiative from Europe 2020 Strategy, which aims to create smart, sustainable and inclusive growth by boosting Europeâ€™s research and innovation performance. Specifically, it contributes to the Innovation Union aim of creating an internal market for skills, patents, venture capital, innovation procurement and standard setting to foster ideas being quickly implemented on the market.
Specifically, the project has provided DG Enterprise with a new tool (the European Label) that:

â€¢ allows the promotion of the implementation of a specific innovation voucher model;
â€¢ enables the interconnection among different innovation vouchers programmes;
â€¢ enable the internationalization of the services providers and the scope of their services to SMEs.

The spread of the model adoption among European regions objective of INNOVOUCHER project required strong implementation activities regarding project communication, dissemination and exploitation. Project partners have structured the communication and dissemination differentiating the identified key stakeholders in order to better focus the activities to be developed for the communication with each target group, and presented the project to European Regions, capable to adopt the model, and also to companies that can become beneficiaries of the vouchersâ€™ systems and benefit from the exchange of innovation services beyond their regional and national borders.