Description of EraSME
EraSME will network national and regional programmes promoting co-operation between SMEs and research organisations from, initially, 14 European countries, with a commitment to later extend the ERANET partnership particularly to the new EU member states. The benefits of EraSME will consist of exchanging best practice between the participating programmes and organisations in key aspects of programme design and management, in order to raise programme efficiency and effectiveness. It will be a "demonstrator" for developing and implementing new strategies of transnational co-operation between programmes with the objective of adding value for both programme participants (SMEs, research organisations) and programme owners. It will create an operational platform for programme owners and managers, with the ultimate objective to establish sustained programme cooperation between member states according to Art. 169 of the EU Treaty. Innovation in European SMEs often suffers from a lack of in-house R&D activities due to high costs and only long-term and hardly predictable RoIs. This situation can be improved by facilitating their access to external resources (e.g. equipment), by contracting research activities to research organisations, and by collaborative research and innovation projects. Unfortunately cultural barriers and the divergent interests of SMEs and research institutes frequently inhibit co-operation between the two. Therefore, in order to overcome these barriers and to "exercise" co-operation, most European countries have established programmes which provide incentives for and facilitate SME-research co-operation, sometimes focused on SMEs, sometimes on research organisations, but always aiming at improving the co-operation between both. Up to now there is neither a systematic exchange of experience between these kinds of programmes in Europe (beyond some smaller initiatives within the TAFTIE network) nor any substantial attempt to co-operate at European scale in order to make cross-border SME-research co-operation possible. EraSME will therefore:
facilitate transnational partnerships between SMEs and research organisations
reduce programme administration costs by joint actions and shared expenses
enhance complementarity between programmes at regional, national and European level by creating a common framework for actions
create the conditions for sustained, long-term co-operation between programmes by designing and implementing a European institutional framework for continuing joint action after the end of the EraSME project (Art. 169).
