Innovation.NRW_1 SIGNED

Project "Innovation.NRW_1" data sheet

The following table provides information about the project.

 Partnership

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 Project objective

Innovations and thus also the management of innovations are of great significance for the competitiveness of the European Union, its Member States and their regions. Innovative individuals or enterprises do something which cannot be expected from the state of the art. They put innovations into practice – generally in the face of considerable resistance – and take financial, technical as well as social risks. Only in this way, however, can new technologies, processes, products or services assert themselves and future markets evolve. Employment, prosperity and the general quality of life and of the environment are directly dependent on the innovation capacity of regions and enterprises. Due to this interrelationship, the European Commission has promoted the Enterprise Europe Network since 2008 in order to provide local support above all to SMEs in the areas of internationalization, technology transfer and generally in the realization of innovations. One of the Network’s tasks is to raise the effectiveness and efficiency of innovation management in SMEs in order to accelerate the implementation of economically impactful innovations.

Supporting SMEs in the area of innovation is a core task and the mission of ZENIT, coordinator of NRW.Europa, the Enterprise Europe Network node in North Rhine-Westphalia. Whilst innovations naturally cannot be forecasted, they can, however, evolve under the right conditions and be successfully managed. Our understanding of innovation and innovation management is oriented at business opportunities. As a consequence, ZENIT is pursuing the following objectives in the Innovation.NRW project:

• To maintain and expand the innovation capacity and competitiveness of the participating SMEs • To help the key SME beneficiaries so that their full innovation potential can be exploited