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 The formal establishment of the INSME Association is on the top of our agenda for 2004. This means creating an international permanent multi-stakeholder Community structured with a variable geometry approach and dealing with several issues related to promoting innovation and technology transfer for SMEs. In doing so, the activities of the Association will be flexible to the needs of its Members and the ever changing situation in this sector.
The INSME initiative implies recognising the need to transform political recommendations into actions and to make an investment for the future so as to strengthen transnational and transregional dialogue, cooperation and partnerships in this field among policy makers and private sector representatives.
Through our work we intend to contribute to raise public and private awareness about the importance of creating a more innovation oriented and SME friendly climate. We would like to support relations between Members, so that they can share their ideas, experience and methodologies thus enabling them to run projects together and to develop economies of scale. This will be also achieved through the INSME portal, that will act as a tool to allow Members to keep in constant contact with each other and create stable relationships among those of them sharing the same priorities: forming synergies and sharing know how on a bilateral and multilateral level.
Ensuring the set up and running of such a Network implies a strong commitment from the Italian side, offering to host its Secretariat. The next step is now consensus building and finding other INSME shareholders, partners and sponsors willing to join us and become Members.
Therefore, the call for applications to join the Association is open. We look forward to hearing from you!
INSME Secretariat |
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Life of the Network |
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New Members join the INSME Steering Group |
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The Galicia e-Commerce Leveraging Centre (Spain), the SBC - Small Business Corporation (Korea), the IWT - Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders (Belgium), the IIE-Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship (India) and the SMIDO-Small and Medium Industries Development Organisation representing Mauritius recently entered the INSME Steering Group as Observers.
 http://www.insme.it/page.asp?page=members_intro
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INSME Secretariat mission to India |
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The INSME Secretariat was invited by the Indian Ministry of Small Scale Industries, Office of the Development Commissioner (SSI), to take part in the 4th National Convention on Small Scale Industries held on the 30th of August in Delhi (India).
This event, that since 2000 has brought together stakeholders of the Indian Small Scale Industry to facilitate dialogue and learning, was an important opportunity for INSME to be promoted among Indian SMEs and Indian intermediaries.
Mrs. Silvia Grandi, responsible for the INSME Pilot Projects within the INSME Secretariat, made a presentation on INSME, explaining its utility as a tool to promote SME�s competitiveness by supporting intermediaries and networks of intermediaries dealing with innovation and technology transfer.
On the occasion of the conference several meetings were held with INSME Members located in Delhi, such as SIDO, WASME and FISME. Important visits were also made to non-Member intermediaries, such as the Waterfalls Institute of Technology Transfer (WITT), the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and the Asian Pacific Centre for Transfer of Technology (APCTT), with the view to promoting INSME and raising awareness about the relevant contribution it can give to facilitate innovation and technology transfer.
http://www.insme.it/page.asp?page=Life&action=detail&IDObject=46&IDObjectType=23
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IKED: secondment of Ms. Glenda Napier to the INSME Secretariat |
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 IKED, the International Organisation for Knowledge Economy and Enterprise Development, Member of the INSME Steering Group and INSME Promoting Committee, is extending its continued support to the INSME by offering a six month secondment of Ms. Glenda Napier, project official at IKED, to the INSME Secretariat, at the IPI office in Milan, Italy.
During this period, effective since the 15th of September, 2003, Ms. Napier will work closely with the INSME team to assist in the transformation of INSME into a formal non profit association. Besides strengthening the cooperation between IKED and INSME, her involvement will include: the advancement of programmes fostering better functioning venture capital markets, the participation in the "Ask INSME" Project Team, the bridging of Nordic organisations to the INSME, the identification of Nordic experts for the INSME "Think Tank" project, assistance in the collection and examination of best practices and support for the benchmarking of policies aimed at enhancing the performance of SMEs and the intermediaries that support them.
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INSME Portal and "INSMEnews": the performance so far |
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The INSME Secretariat is proud to announce that the number of the total users surfing the INSME web portal has considerably increased. In July the portal has almost quadrupled its audience, totalling 2,594 unique visitors and 14,833 page views, with an average monthly traffic in the period running from May to September 2003 of 1,200 unique visitors and 8,400 page views.
�INSMEnews�, launched last May with 1,000 subscribers, now has 1,800 readers.
Moreover, the INSME Portal has been reviewed in the WASME Newsletter and on the websites of CORDIS, EURADA, the Development Gateway and other several foreign and Italian newsletters and innovation portals.
We invite Members to keep on sending us relevant information and documents related to innovation and technology transfer in their countries in order for us to improve the overall quality of the sections of the INSME portal and provide them with the most valuable content and services.
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INSME meetings in 2004 |
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- Mid-February 2004: Second INSME Promoting Committee Meeting.
Location still to be decided.
- Mid-May 2004: Fourth INSME Steering Group Meeting.
Location: Rome, Italy.
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News from the INSME Members |
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Statement by Mr. Thomas Andersson (IKED) |
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Statement by a Member of the INSME Steering Group and INSME Promoting Committee: Mr. Thomas Andersson - President of IKED - International Organisation for Knowledge Economy and Enterprise Development
 Considering that SMEs represent some 60% of all production and all employment in most developed countries, it is odd to notice that years of rhetoric on the importance of removing obstacles to SME-development have failed to alter the fact that these firms remain disproportionately weakened by a range of regulations and other policies. While vigorous reform efforts were made by some countries, a dire deficit of knowledge remains on what necessary basic conditions are required for success in this area. Initiatives that serve to improve the awareness and acknowledgement of the micro and macro factors that shape the performance of SMEs are greatly important.
IKED, located in Sweden, is a young international organisation, which operates on a Nordic basis, focusing on the crosscutting horizontal challenge of how to build better conditions for innovative, creative and entrepreneurial societies. For IKED, a reinforced presence and participation in the INSME initiative has been a natural choice.
Until recently, IKED assisted in the shaping of the INSME organisation from the distance. IKED forwarded some recommendations and suggestions for the future orientation of the INSME initiative, and indeed represents one of the few voices from Northern Europe that have chosen to actively follow the process since its launch in Bologna 2000. At the same time, IKED informed its backers in the Nordic countries, including NUTEK (the National Technical and Economic Development Board of Sweden) and was able to channel various relevant ideas both ways in broader consultative networks.
Now, the time has come for INSME to produce concrete results, and to offer concrete services that can generate value-enhancing activities. The value of INSME will ultimately depend on the quality of these offers. No question, there is great need among the vast population of SMEs around the world for more effective diffusion of more relevant services targeting SME development and in particular access to innovation and technology.
In order to be fully effective in contributing to the opportunities created by the INSME process, the senior management of IKED opted for playing an interactive and participatory role in the development of actual content in INSME. As a result, one of our programme officials, Ms. Napier, recently joined the INSME team in Milan for a period of 6-12 months, thus showing an interest in becoming an Operative Member of the INSME Association by contributing in kind.
Based on the commitment to engage in active exchanges on issues relevant for the advance of SMEs in the knowledge-based economy, I see several synergies flourishing from a closer collaboration between IKED and INSME. First of all, as IKED's core platform is institutions in the Nordic region, a natural and needed bridging between the INSME Network and organisations in the Nordic countries will evolve. Second, I believe that an active IKED involvement in INSME will be beneficial for the process in developing on- and off-line services for intermediaries and networks, benchmarking and best practice programmes and projects. Our contribution is likely to be evident for those INSME Members who, on a regular basis, deal with the challenges connected to innovative and traditional SMEs' access to finance and venture capital, as well as to those who are concerned with developing managerial, economic and technical competences within SMEs. It will be within those fields that IKED will place the major part of its resources now devoted for Milan.
Lastly, I believe that by taking this step towards a more committed engagement in INSME, IKED will encourage other INSME Members to follow up and engage in similar ways. INSME is faced with considerable challenges, not all projects and paths embarked upon by the initiative will succeed, and some of the public initiatives that will be introduced through INSME might have been better handled by markets than by a public institution. At the same time, INSME is an organisation set to catalyse and improve the functioning of market mechanisms in an area where imperfections in information and in trust abound. The needs are real, the challenges of SMEs are real, their innovative capacity is yet unfulfilled, and we all need to be active in helping to improve this playing field which is certain to be decisive for the economic and social fate of many people in the years to come.
Thomas Andersson
President of IKED-International Organization for Knowledge Economy and Enterprise Development (Sweden)
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Report on the 14th WASME International SME Conference-ICSME 2003 |
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 WASME, the World Association for SMEs, member of the INSME Network, held its 14th International SME Conference on 15-18 September in Tel Aviv (Israel), hosted by ISMEA (the Israel SMEs Authority) on "Opportunities for SMEs in a Globalised World: Innovative Policies and Programmes".
The conference, which attracted 317 participants from 58 Countries, 8 Major International Organisations and several NGOs, focussed on different areas which included Technology and Innovation and Innovative Approaches (both finance and non finance) to support SMEs. The conference closed its work with participants calling for a joint action to ensure appropriate legislation, infrastructure, incentives and environmental issues by means of realistic, comprehensive and understandable policies and programmes to promote technology and innovation among SMEs.
http://www.insme.it/page.asp?page=whatsnew&numpages=4&action=detail&IDObject=47&IDObjectType=7
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OECD-KOSGEB: launch of a website dedicated to the Istanbul SME Ministerial Conference 2004 |
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A website dedicated to the second OECD Ministerial Conference on SMEs has been launched by the organisers of this event.
Information on the Conference is available at:
 http://www.oecd-istanbul.sme2004.org or http://www.sme2004.org
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Istanbul Conference 2004: the Global Marketplace |
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A Global Marketplace will be held in parallel to the second OECD Ministerial Conference on SMEs during the week 2-6 June 2004 at the Lufti Kirdar Centre in Istanbul.
It is conceived as a Business Exhibition for Enterprises, business associations and technical centres to display their activities using booths.
It will also be an opportunity to exchange experiences or arrange bilateral meetings. An information booth to present the INSME will be set up on this occasion.
Information for participation in the Global Marketplace is soon to be found at:
http://www.oecd-istanbul.sme2004.org/market.htm
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INSME Pilot Projects |
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Good news about "FASHION NET" |
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Fashion Net, the project presented by the INSME Secretariat within the Sixth EU Research and Technological Development Framework Programme (FP6; Activity Area: Structuring ERA � Research and Innovation - ETI), has been favourably evaluated by the European Commission with a potential grant of 75% of the total budget of the project (approximately � 900,000)
Fashion Net�s objective is to develop networking activities aiming at fostering innovation and technology transfer in the fashion system, which includes textile, clothing, shoes, leather and other parallel activities (design, supply chain, environment, etc).
In particular, the project aims at: - enhancing the competitiveness of SMEs;
- promoting transnational SME cooperation across the enlarged Europe;
- strengthening links and integrating networks and partnerships within the fashion system among intermediaries and among clusters of SMEs.
The project involves 16 partner organisations which represent 8 Countries: 4 are EU Member Countries, (Italy, France, Greece and Spain) and the others are EU newly Associated Countries (Czech Republic, Lithuania, Romania and Turkey). Further details at:
www.insme.info/documenti/CP_Presentation_PILOT_PROJECTS_fashion.ppt
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Tunisia |
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Contacts are still ongoing with the Tunisian Ministry of Industry and Energy to proceed for the definition of a common basis of co-operation in order to launch an INSME Pilot Project aimed at promoting the networking and internationalisation of Tunisian Technical Centres.
A fruitful meeting in this regard between the INSME delegation and its Tunisian counterpart was held on 22-23 September, 2003 in Tunis.
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Call for proposals |
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Launch of the first INSME Thematic Working Group |
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The INSME Secretariat promotes the creation of Thematic Working Groups (TWGs) in order to strengthen dialogue and cooperation among Members.
These groups, to be set up on a voluntary basis, will involve only those INSME Members who are interested in sharing experiences, methodologies and good practices on specific vertical or horizontal topics or with respect to a limited geographical area.
The TWGs can pave the way for launching joint Pilot Projects among some interested INSME Members and will mainly use ICT for their activities (mostly through the INSME portal and e-mail).
To express your interest in launching and coordinating a Thematic Working Group, please contact the INSME Secretariat, submitting details about your proposal, specifying suggested topics for the TWG and identifying your preferred role, i.e. as co-ordinator or simple member of a TWG.
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Reminder on the INSME "Think Tank" |
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The proposal to set up an INSME "Think Tank", launched last July, has raised great interest from INSME Members and non Members.
We have already received several applications and we are setting up the database of experts for the INSME "Think Tank".
We would like to remind you that the deadline for submitting applications and sending us your CV is the 6th of October, 2003.
For further details, please read the call for applications or contact Ms. Silvia Grandi:
grandi@ipi.it
Fax: +39 06 80972443.
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Events |
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The INSME Secretariat is promoting the set up of the INSME Association and in this view is making numerous contacts at international, regional and national level in order to identify potential members, partners and sponsors.
Here are the upcoming events where the Secretariat will be participating:
ADT (German Association of Business Incubators and Technology Parks)
Annual Conference
Berlin, Germany
September 28-30, 2003
http://www.adt-online.de/
Euro-Mediterranean Industrial Cooperation
Working Group High level Meeting
Rome, Italy
October 2-3, 2003
http://www.insme.it/documenti/EUMED_draft_agenda_EN-15-9-03.pdf
Italian Association of Scientific and Technology Parks (APSTI)
National Conference
Bergamo, Italy
October 10, 2003
http://www.servitec.it/apsti/index.htm
Here are some other interesting events focused on innovation and technology transfer and other issues relevant to the INSME Process:
Innovact 8th Edition
The European meeting for innovative new companies
Reims, France
September 30 � October 2, 2003
http://www.innovact.com/
IST 2003 Conference
Milan's Exhibition Centre - Smau 2003, Italy
October 2-4, 2003
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/istevent/2003/index_en.htm
"Industrial Property. Quo Vadis?"
The future role of IP in creating wealth and employment and stimulating innovation and competition
Ischia (Naples), Italy
October 5-7, 2003
http://www.ischiaconference-ipr.org/
WIPO-WASME special program on practical intellectual property rights issues for entrepreneurs, economists, bankers
Geneva, Switzerland
October 6-9, 2003
http://www.wipo.org/documents/en/meetings/2003/wipo_wasme/
Presentation of the Science Parks of Wallonia (SPoW)
Brussels, Belgium
October 9, 2003
http://www.spow.be
http://www.investinwallonia.be
Symposium on the Entrepreneurship � Innovation � Marketing
Karlsruhe, Germany
October 9-10, 2003
http://eim.wiwi.uni-karlsruhe.de/
2nd International Conference of the Association of Science and Technology Parks
Ourense, Spain
October 16-17, 2003
http://www.apte.org/conferencia02.doc
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