GPRIX · Good Practices in Innovation Support Measures for SMEs: facilitating transition from the traditional to the knowledge economy

The GPrix project - Good Practices in Innovation Support Measures for SMEs: facilitating transition from the traditional to the knowledge economy - will provide a comprehensive insight into the design and implementation of SME research and innovation support programmes, actions, services and networks especially at national and regional level, and on its impact, in particular amongst the traditional sectors SMEs that represent the vast majority of companies in Europe. The GPrix consortium will carry out an in-depth analysis of R&D&I support measures and their impact in SMEs and on their transaction towards a knowledge economy, focusing on eight European regions, namely on the North and Central regions of Portugal, Limousin in France, Emilia-Romagna in Italy, West Midlands in the UK, Comunidad Valenciana in Spain, North Brabant in The Netherlands, Flanders in Belgium and Saxony-Anhalt in Germany. The ultimate question that GPrix partners will try to address is: “Which support measures can help local economic communities, with a strong basis of traditional industries, to prosper in the rapidly changing, increasingly open global economy?” In order to answer such question, partners will assess current measures and its impact at local level close to SMEs, perform a European benchmark of R&D&I measures and suggest a set of new measures targeted to traditional sectors, which will be validated at European scale and disseminated through several channels, including synergies with the UNIC network for an effective implementation in 9 European regions.