The HORIZON 2020 program is a framework program for research and innovation of the EU, valid for the period 2014 to 2020. The partner - Moravian-Silesian Innovation Center initiated a project from the call INNOSUP-05-2018-2020: Peer learning of innovation agencies. SU is involved as a third party. The project time frame is 1 year - until the end of March 2022.
The main objective of the EFFECT-SME project is to improve the quality of innovation support programs for start-ups and SMEs by developing an efficient and effective methodology that evaluates the impact of support programs on these actors.
The specific objectives are:
The general concept of EFFECT SME is based on the exchange of good practices and specific technical knowledge on the challenge of supporting innovation, monitoring and evaluating the impact of support programs for start-ups and SMEs. This will allow mutual learning of each of the project partners, but also the adaptation of the identified schemes to the specific national / regional environment of many more interested agencies outside the consortium and the improvement of the application of their evaluation culture / practice.
The project consortium will apply the Twinning + methodology through 3 interactive learning workshops focused on evaluating the impact of the support programs in force in the participating regions. It will work from the different perspectives of the three partners, combining different levels of experience, methodological approaches and a geographical balance. Desk research on available methodologies will complete the learning between partners.
The evaluation of the effectiveness of the support measures for start-ups and SMEs and the adaptation of the lessons learned will be taken into account for the modification of the current support programs for these companies.
The Design Option Paper (DOP) on the impact assessment will be the main output of the project. The innovative methodology developed during the project will be disseminated through numerous business support networks for subsequent exploitation by innovation agencies in Europe.
Project partners are:
The role of Silesian university, which is fulfilled by the team of the Department of Business Economics and Management at SBA, is in the desk research and in the facilitation of peer-learning workshops. The SU team consist of: doc. Mgr. Tomáš Gongol, Ph.D., Ing. Dalibor Šimek, Ph.D., Ing. Martin Klepek, Ph.D.