Innovation Europe > News > Innovation EU Vol1-1 > Support for success

ACHIEVE MORE, an E1.8m consortium project, has reached critical mass, with a 69-member public-private partnership spread across 26 countries in the EU and beyond, supported by the European Commission’s Europe Innova programme under the Competitive and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP).

The partnership, which brings together 50 business incubators and 10 clusters with a focus on knowledge-intensive services (KIS) ICT companies, is road-testing a toolkit that supports many aspects of early stage business growth. The tools include:

• Analytic methods for identifying key markets where SME can provide for unmet customer needs
• Transferring understanding of investment options and preparation for making winning investor pitches
• Multimedia that captures the key challenges for entrepreneurs
• Guidelines for building rewarding alliances and partnerships
• A guide to better practice in business incubation.

The project works through its partners to impact 400 ICT SMEs, by 2011, which are developing service-based business. The ICT service sector, the focus for this partnership, is recognised as being a lead market, and a key to future European competitiveness. Service innovation is a key entrepreneurial challenge in the development of fast-moving markets and also for the investment community, who need to understand the value in a product offering that may not be protectable with patents.

The aim is to help accelerate for these 400 SMEs their product, service and market development, equip them with strategically important understanding of how to grow the business and overcome generic challenges (such as building a management team) and be more successful at an early stage reducing the risk inherent in all early stage businesses of running out of money.

St John’s Innovation Centre, based in Cambridge, leads the ACHIEVE MORE project, now entering the second half of duration, and due to finish in early 2011.

The nine project partners have a variety of interlocking roles:

• UKBI, the business incubation network, is spreading better practice across the 50 business incubators involved, and is leading the development of the core Entrepreneurship and Innovation Exchange (EIX).
• EBN, the pan-European business support and innovation network, is facilitating awareness of the toolkit across its much larger membership base throughout the EU.
• Finance Tree in Newcastle is an expert in early stage finance and coaching and training of entrepreneurs and is responsible for delivering the Investment Readiness Tool, and in setting up two innovative seed-fund models which can be implemented in selected business incubators and clusters.
• IAT in Germany will inject its expert knowledge of how ICT clusters are managed across Europe.
• Gate Garching, the ICT specialist business incubator near Munich, is leading the trialling of some of the tools and advising on the requirements of KIS businesses in this sector.
• Innovationsbron, the Swedish state-funded investor in early stage business, is working to develop seed- funding models for servicebased business
• CERAM, the prestigious business school in Southern France, has developed the market analysis tool and is introducing that to many SMEs and their intermediaries, refining their approach to their markets.
• • eUconnect Ltd, the specialist communications company, is developing a variety of training media and capturing some of the inspiring stories and key lessons that can be learned and shared through the EIX, to energise the incubators, clusters and individual entrepreneurs.

The project as a whole is also capturing and sharing with the European Commission important policy-related insights that are emerging in relation to the KIS ICT sector, to investment dynamics in this segment and in terms of innovation support.

The Entrepreneurship & Innovation Exchange

A key development within ACHIEVE MORE is the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Exchange (EIX). This is a physical meeting place that has its second meeting in Croatia in February 2010, at which the whole extended partnership of project partners will get together to identify the leading edge of better practice in incubation, cluster development and the status of investment for service-based businesses in this sector. The EIX is open to all and it is anticipated that there are key lessons to be learned and strategies to be shared between incubation and cluster professionals. Use the contact below to register an interest in attending this event.

The EIX also has a virtual face, on www.eandix.ning.com. This business-focused social network, using the free Ning software, was set up at the beginning of this year, and now has around 350 members from over 50 countries, who use it to discover others who share their work focus and to build relationships with them that can lead to knowledge transfer. The website is open to all professionals with an interest in the future of innovation and the role of supporting entrepreneurs in their journey to the market.

You are welcome to visit and join the EIX, to share your thoughts, write a blog, comment on others’ blogs, check out important events that the project and others are putting on, and generally see what current thinking is about. There are a few closed user groups for the ACHIEVE MORE project partners, but the EIX is open to all.

The project as a whole is also capturing and sharing with the EC important policyrelated insights that are emerging in relation to the KIS ICT sector

STOP PRESS SETTING UP SEED FUNDS:
Linked to Business incubators and clusters Conference and workshop, Delft, Netherlands, 28-30th October 2009
Register at www.ukbi.co.uk
Further info from N.Blagburn@financetree.biz

For more information, contact: E-mail: n.blagburn@financetree.biz
The project manager based at St John’s Innovation Centre is David Moir. E-mail: d.moir@stjohns.co.uk