MAPEER SME · Making Progress and Economic Enhancement a Reality for SMEs

The MaPEeR SME proposed CSA covering EU-27 Member States and Bosnia & Herzegovina, with a clear cross-sectoral approach, aims to acquire comprehensive insight into the design, implementation and impact of existing SME research and innovation support programmes and initiatives and convey it in the most appropriate way to SME stakeholders and policy-makers. The methodology adopted by MaPEeR SME brings SME needs and requirements in the centre of the development and evolution processes of programmes and initiatives, in a “user-centric” framework. End-users will be integral part of the process. MaPEeR SME is to identify, map and analyse all those programmes and initiatives that assist the collaboration between science and SMEs. Including purely technology-oriented and R&D programmes, but also life-long learning or applications of industrial science results. MaPEeR SME will also identify and evaluate the economic, social and environmental impact of identified support measures on SMEs to pro-actively feed in the web platform and to improve and develop recommendations for new support measures better addressing SMEs through the “European SME Council”. On this basis the MaPEeR SME work plan foresees the definition and refining of a (regionally-differentiated, and cross-sectoral) Strategy for the future design of new RTD and innovation policies, measures, and support services to assist research actions in favour of SMEs and fully exploit synergies between research, innovation and education activities. The approach guiding the MaPEeR SME project is to come up with a comprehensive set of practical recommendations, comparative analysis and consistently effective strategies and policies to improve performance of SMEs advance research and innovation initiatives and programmes by learning not only from best practices but also mainly from the processes by which they are achieved.