Slovakia has joined an international initiative to support most innovative start-ups
The Ministry of Economy of the Slovak Republic has joined the project funded by the EU programme Horizon 2020, GO SME, aiming to share experience with the support of start-ups and small and medium enterprises and level differences in the form and quality of support across individual EU members.
The GO SME project brings together national and regional agencies supporting research and innovation from 12 European countries with an interest in exchanging experiences and developing common quality standards for the preparation of national and regional support schemes for innovative start-ups. Selected partners, including the Ministry of Economy of the Slovak Republic, will then validate the proposed procedures in a pilot call for proposals, to be implemented before the project officially ends in 2023. In this call, international evaluators will select the best start-ups that will receive tailor-made professional coaching and financial contribution for the further development of their product or service with global potential.
The project has started in May 2021 and within the next 2-years will focus on following activities:
- learning from best practices already applied in support schemes for innovative SMEs and startups,
- motivation of agencies from widening countries to design innovation support schemes for SMEs and start-ups,
- cooperation in the setting up of comparable support schemes and sets of selection criteria,
- sharing of best practices in the work with (international) experts and sharing of their pools,
- learning from best practices in providing coaching and mentoring services to innovative SMEs and start-ups,
- setting up and sharing mutual pools of coaches and mentors,
- offering special services to running projects which will be selected as the most promising by an independent international panel.
After completing the pilot call and finalizing the recommendations, the GO-SME project has the ambition to become part of the European support scheme for innovative SMEs, EIC Accelerator, in the form of the so-called plug-in mechanism. At the same time, it can serve as a pilot project for a possible partnership co-funded from innovation ecosystems in the Horizon Europe programme.
List of partners:
- Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TA ČR), Czech Republic,
- Service Public Wallonie (SPW-EER), Belgium,
- Startup Europe Regions Network (SERN), Belgium,
- Ettevõtluse Arendamise Sihtasutus (EAS), Estonia,
- German Aerospace Center (DLR), Germany,
- National Research and Development Office (NRDI), Hungary
- Invitalia, Italy,
- Agency for Science, Innovation and Technology (MITA), Lithuania,
- Luxinnovation (LXI), Luxemburg,
- Ministry for Research, Innovation and the Co-ordination of Post Covid-19 Strategy (MRIC), Malta,
- National Innovation Agency of Portugal (ANI), Portugal,
- Ministry of Economy of the Slovak Republic (MoE SR), Slovakia,
- Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI), Spain,
- Catalan Agency for Business Competitiveness (ACCIÓ), Spain,
- IESE Business school of University of Navarra (IESE), Spain.
Further information: