Steinbeis Stiftung is a network for technology transfer and innovation which operates through more than 500 Transfer Centres and Transfer Institutes and has cooperation agreements and project partners in 40 countries.

The IRC D/CH is the Innovation Relay Centre for Southern Germany and the German speaking part of Switzerland.

The INSME Steering Group currently includes 76 Members: 41 Governments (22 OECD and 19 non-OECD), 18 International Organisations and NGOs, and 17 networks and intermediaries acting in the field of innovation and technology transfer to SMEs.

 View the full list of the INSME Members
 See the eligibility criteria to join INSME
 Apply for membership in the INSME Network
 Apply for membership in the INSME Association (soon available)

In early December, on the occasion of the XXI Session of the OECD Working Party on SMEs and Entrepreneurship, Ms. Marzetti, Head of the INSME Secretariat, brought the Members of the Working Party up to date on the progress of INSME's activities and the establishment of the INSME Association in early 2004.

While in Paris, Ms. Marzetti had the opportunity to meet and discuss about potential collaboration within INSME with the following delegates of the Steering Group: Mrs. Sophie Quentin from MEDEF, the French Enterprises Movement, and Mr. Jean Eric Aubert from the World Bank Institute.

A meeting with a representative of ANVAR, the French National Agency for Innovation, was also organised to promote synergies between INSME and this French organisation.

On December 3rd Ms. Silvia Grandi (Head of the INSME Pilot Projects) made a presentation of INSME at the workshop on "Trade Capacity Building and Private Sector Development in Asia" organised in Phnom Penh (Cambodia) by the OECD as a preparatory meeting for the second Ministerial Conference on SMEs (June 2004). The role of support structures for SMEs was discussed. In particular, a theme was launched: "How innovation and technology transfer plays a role in building trade capacity in SMEs and how trade plays a role in building innovation in SMEs"?

INSME was also mentioned during the presentation of Mr. Pankaj Jain from SIDO (Member of our Network), highlighting the role of INSME in providing international recognition of his organisation.

Bilateral contacts, established on this occasion, provided an opportunity to get in touch with public and private organisations willing to join the INSME.

Among them:

• UNESCAP (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific);
• the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute;
• the Thailand Office for SMEs;
• the Governments of Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Malesia.

Ms. Grandi also met with Dr. Agrawal, from WASME (Member of the INSME), to further discuss the joint INSME-WASME Training Programme for Asia, to take place in New Delhi (India) in late 2004. In addition, a meeting with Mr. Mukesh Gulati, Responsible for the Cluster Development Programme of UNIDO-India, was organised in order to discuss UNIDO-India's potential participation in this training programme.

As well as being an occasion for better understanding the Thai SME system, which is now one of the priorities of the country's policies, these meetings were important as they provided an opportunity to share INSME's objectives with these organisations and promote INSME's activities and services among them. In particular, the possibility to broaden and strengthen contacts with other organisations at international level in order to exchange technologies was recognised by the Thailand Institute of Scientific and Technological Research and the Institute for Small and Medium Enterprise Development as being the real value added of INSME.

Mr. Sisti , in a joint presentation with Mr. Simon Robinson, senior consultant of CORDIS, showed to the visitors and participants of the conference the services available on the INSME portal, with a special focus on the Partner Search Area. This area hosts 2 services:

• the INSME Partners Search Service, available by logging in, is especially dedicated to INSME Members (but at this stage is also available for non Members upon registration) to help them find the most suitable partners within the INSME Community, in order to co-operate in projects and initiatives related to innovation and technology transfer;
• the CORDIS Technology Marketplace helps any visitor of the INSME portal identify technological advances ready for exploitation, further development or funding.

This service is based on a content feed system implemented for the INSME portal in the framework of the above mentioned partnership with CORDIS.

This event, promoted by the Italian Embassy in the Czech Republic, in the framework of the Italian Presidency of the European Union, illustrated the Italian experience in the SME field, in order to strengthen the cooperation between the industrial systems of the two countries and to transfer the culture of Italian clusters and service centres to the Czech Republic. The conference, responding to the needs of local operators, also showed the way to access direct technical assistance and use the European Structural Funds.

The INSME Secretariat, represented by Ms. Daniela de Vincentiis,  participated with an information stand and exploited this opportunity to meet the Czech delegates of the INSME Steering Group so as to better evaluate their future participation in the INSME Association and to promote the INSME initiative among the Czech authorities.

INSME will act as an information hub, a facilitator, accelerator, multiplier and catalyser of existing, relevant intermediaries and their networks at international, regional and national level, supporting the launch of new projects, disseminating results, developing synergies and promoting economies of scale.

Moreover, INSME will contribute to the exchanges among SMEs encouraging the transfer of knowledge, exchanges of experiences, good practices and methodologies, strengthening networking, partnering and linkages between participating member countries, international organizations, and NGOs.

Among the INSME's services, I recommend widely two of them; the Think Thank and the Tailored Services.  Both are on-line fora in which all the Members are able to get customized and tailored assistance in the adoption, develop and use of high technology, only by turning on their computer and accessing to the INSME portal.

The cost of these services are really low, in comparison with all the benefits that represent for all the INSME Members, in particular for those developing countries, that do not have enough resources to acquire and develop new technology and also get special advise about the suitable use of it; in order to improve the entrepreneurial communities in their regions. 

For all these reasons, we must support the establishment of the Think Thank and Tailored Services, as a tool for the policy makers, to plan and develop future policies related to innovation and technology transfer, in order to improve the quality of goods and have access to foreign markets.

Definitely, the success of INSME project is based in the efforts and the innovation of its Members. That is the reason why I want to call the attention of all countries participants interested in the development and growth of their SMEs to join the INSME and evaluate the opportunity to cooperate and to be part of it.

Finally, I propel the Members to work hard with the aim to achieve all the objectives of the organization.

Mr. Ivan Ornelas Diaz
Director of International Relations
Mexican Ministry of Economy

The RIDITT Network aims at stimulating the creation of partnerships and projects on a sectorial and geographical basis and at improving the marketing of services for innovation and technology transfer to SMEs through the use of ICT. RIDITT will also act as the Italian hub within INSME.
The RIDITT portal, available in Italian and English, offers free-of-charge services to public and private actors involved in innovation and technology transfer. These include:

Information services:

• Competence catalogue: a database of services and technological and industrial expertise of the main operators active in the field of innovation and technology transfer 
• Resources for Innovation: a constantly updated directory of Innovation centres and networks which are active in Italy 
• Financing: a database of public and private financing available for innovation projects and technology transfer in Italy 
• Tenders: a directory of all open tenders that are relevant in the area of innovation and technology transfer 
• Library: an archive of studies, handbooks, projects and reports on innovation 
• Knowledge Sharing Area: a reserved section dedicated to knowledge sharing and research of information on innovation and technology transfer 
• Events: a directory of conferences, seminars, conventions of interest to Italian innovation centres 
• News: news on innovation and technology transfer regarding Italy on national and sub-national levels; international news relevant for this field are also displayed.

• Partner Search: an online tool designed to promote the development of projects for innovation and technological transfer 
• Training: a directory of integrated training packages currently available (activities off-line and online will be developed in 2004) 
• Online expert: professional answers to explicit questions given online by experts. 
• Forum: open online discussion area.

A monthly newsletter, RIDITTnews, is also available in Italian (both on the RIDITT portal and directly in one's e-mail box), in order to keep interested actors informed about the main issues related to innovation and technology transfer in Italy.
 
Visit the RIDITT portal:
 http://www.riditt.it/page.asp?page=default&IDLanguage=en

For further information, contact the RIDITT Staff:
info@riditt.it

Subscribe to RIDITTnews (available only in Italian)
info@riditt.it

Furthermore, the Think Tankers recommended to include, in the new INSME Services, training activities among and for INSME Members, responding to their specific needs.

The  INSME Secretariat will circulate the summary records of this first meeting to the INSME Members by mid-January 2004. The summary records will also be made available directly in the INSME Member's Area of the portal.

The upcoming INSME Meeting in Malmo, to be held on February 25-27, 2004, will represent a good occasion to discuss the outcomes of this first session and share the result achieved with the participants.

 
 Visit the Think Tank Session Photo Gallery

Chaired by IKED (Member of the INSME Steering Group),  issues and discussion covered in this TWG include: financial shortages for SMEs, venture capital and innovation, public-private partnerships and tools to strengthen venture industries.

Besides Ms. Glenda Napier from IKED, the group consists of:

• Ms. Claire Munck and Mr. Christian Saublens from the Association of Regional Development Agencies in Europe (EURADA);
• Mr. Yashvir Singh from the Small Industries Development Organisation (SIDO, India);
• Mr. Anil Bhardwaj from the Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME, India);
• Mr. Antonio Vives from the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB);
• Mr. Yohannan Levi from the Israeli Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labour,
• Mr. Kenny Pegram from the Federation for Enterprise Development (FED, US);
• Mr. Paolo Anselmo from Centro Sviluppo Aosta and INSME Member (Italy);
• Mr. Nick Davis from the New Zealand Ministry of Economic Development;
• Ms. Simona Morachioli for the INSME Secretariat.

Registered Members of the TWG can access the dedicated discussion room at:
 http://www.insme.org/

For further information TWG on Innovative Finance, contact Ms. Glenda Napier at the INSME Secretariat:
Phone: +39 02 43440203
glenda.napier@iked.org

Read more about the TWGs at:
 http://www.insme.org

The occasion was a meeting of TA-NET's delegates, which represented an opportunity for Mr. Sisti to meet Mr. Philip Purslow, coordinator for TANET, and Mr. Coling Piddington, coordinator for e-Power, a network of 78 Regional Technology Centres  serving SME communities in the Engineering and Manufacturing sector, in which TANET takes part as a member.

The objective of this meeting was to explore the possibilities of partnerships and synergies between INSME and e-Power. INSME is a hub comprising international, regional and national thematic and sectorial networks, and e-Power represents one of the largest network in Europe in the engineering and manufacturing field. 
 
Discussions focused on strategic guidelines and mutual benefits that could result from the partnership. e-Power could play a leading role within INSME in the thematic area related to the engineering and manufacturing sector.
 
Further contacts to better define scope and operational activities to reach an overall partnership agreement will continue early next year.

Visit TA-NET website:
 http://www.tanet.org.uk

Visit e-Power website:
 http://www.e-power.info/e-power/home/home.asp

This three-year initiative is dedicated to strengthening business incubators and similar programs, and through them stimulate the emergence and growth of innovative, highly competitive and ICT-enabled small enterprises in developing countries. The initiative also fosters international dissemination of successful practices on business incubation, and in particular on the effective use of ICT and e-services as vehicles to achieve greater efficiencies and higher productivity in business incubation programs and across small enterprise development cycles.

The Information for Development Program launches now the third Request for Proposals - RFP of the Incubator Initiative.

In this RFP, there are three different modalities of grants:

• Operational Grants for existing business incubators with at least two years of experience in business incubation;
• Capacity Building Grants for start-up business incubators or related programs already established and ready to launch a pilot incubation program;
• Planning Grants for the establishment of new business incubation programs.

Target proponents include profit and non-for-profit incubators and similar organizations already established and providing support services to small businesses in developing countries.
The deadline for applications is January 20, 2004.

See the full Request for Proposals and more details on the Incubator Initiative at:
 http://www.infodev.org/incubator/RFPdec2003.pdf

Programme
MEDA (Mediterranean Actions)

Nature of contract
Fee-based

Contract description
The general objectives of the Euromed Innovation and Technology programme are the implementation of a framework to facilitate the development of innovating and quality products by MEDA enterprises, to develop co-operation among operators in Innovation and Technology transfer between EU and MEDA region and across MEDA actors. The specific objectives are to reinforce Technical Innovation Centres (TCI) in MEDA partner countries and to create a network of MEDA TCI with EU innovation technical centres.

Contracting Authority
EuropeAid Co-operation Office on behalf of beneficiary countries and territories

Indicative maximum budget
EUR 7,250,000

Detailed information about this individual service contract forecast on:
 http://europa.eu.int/comm/europeaid/tender

Further details on the official website of the centre:
 http://www.Trento.oecd.org

Visit WASME website:
 http://www.wasmeinfo.org/