Examples of activities to be carried out are:

• support for the purchase of services for the technological, strategic, organisational and commercial innovation of enterprises (action by Programme Agreement).

The objective of this action is twofold:

- to support the demand for innovation on the part of companies through the acquisition of qualified services for the implementation of processes virtuous and not occasional, also with a view to organizational innovation with reference to working hours for a better balance between work and production vitality flexibility functional to an effective increase in innovation, measurable not only locally but also internationally;

- to contribute to the rationalisation and upgrading of the supply of services throughout the innovation lifecycle. The services must enable enterprises to create, absorb and bring to the market knowledge, and in particular:  

• to access to available knowledge and technology, including outside the region;
• to develop new products, services, processes or solutions;
• to acquire ideas, patents, knowledge;
• to activate processes of innovation of sense through creativity, design, etc. ;
• to integrate the necessary skills according to the different innovation needs (technological, strategic, organisational and commercial).

The action proposes a single gateway to different support services, including:

• the provision of highly qualified personnel;
• technology watch aimed at commercial applications;
• proactive identification of technology with commercial potential;
• identification of the market value of the search results;
• feasibility and collaboration with customers, investors or regional companies;
• validation of technological maturity and commercial competitiveness of ideas;
• intellectual property
• choice of the most suitable business strategy: licensing, sale of patents, spin-outs;
• intermediation tools;
• collaboration and networking spaces;
• negotiation of knowledge and technology transfer;
• development of a business and financial plan;
• support in the search for investors (business angels, seeds or venture capitalists funds);
• support in finding a first customer, etc.
   
• Support to the technological advancement of enterprises through the funding of pilot lines and early product validation and large scale demonstration actions (action from Programme Agreement 1. 1. 5)

The action aims at transporting innovative ideas further along the innovation cycle chain (close to market approach) up to the construction of prototypes in a laboratory environment or in an environment with simulation interfaces to existing systems and the implementation of pilot lines. This action is necessary for industrial research, in particular for the validation of generic technologies, according to the Technology Readiness Level I approach[I].

The action supports projects that undertake innovation from the demonstration phase through to market deployment, including phases such as piloting, test-beds, real-world validation/working conditions, pre-normative research and normalisation.

The types of beneficiaries are SMEs and research organisations.

[I] http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/wp/2014 _20 I 5/annexes/h2020-wp 1415-annex-g-trl_en.pdf