10-13 May, 2010
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Venue: Hotel Sofitel, Copacabana

The next INSME Annual Meeting will be held in May 2010 from 10 to 13 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The event will be co-organised by the Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service SEBRAE, INSME Member.

Watch the video on the location of the 2010 INSME Annual Meeting.

 Download the information flyer.

More detailed information will be available in the next months. Participation for INSME Members is for free.

For expressions of interest and details, please contact the INSME Secretariat at:
 insmerio2010@insme.it

 Learn more about former INSME Annual Meetings.

The INSME Secretary General participated as guest speaker at the latest Meeting of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) Working Group on SMEs, held in Thessaloniki, Greece, on 20-22 May 2009, focused on High Technology, Innovation and SMEs, Technology Parks and Incubators, co-organized in collaboration with the Hellenic Organization of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises and Handicraft (EOMMEX), coordinator of the WG.

INSME has enjoyed the sectoral dialogue partnership status within BSEC since 2006.

Learn about the BSEC Innovation data bank managed by EOMMEX to foster among BSEC countries the dissemination of information concerning organizations, universities, technology parks, incubators, research institutions:
 http://www.eommex.gr/Article.aspx?id=11758

 Download the May Issue of  the newsletter "Black Sea News", edited by the BSEC PERMIS.

 Find out about the BSEC Project Development Fund.

The INSME Secretariat organised an open meeting with the EU Project Incubation Centre - EUPIC (Chengdu) on 22 June, 2009, at its premises in Rome. The meeting tackled ways of future collaboration activities with EUPIC, also with the view of promoting the participation of EU companies in the upcoming EU-China Business & Technology Cooperation Fair IV to be held on October 17-18 2009, in Chengdu (P.R. China). 

Learn more about the Technology Cooperation Fair:
 Flyer
 Event registration form
 Hotel Reservation Form

 Download the EUPIC presentation.

INSME and EUPIC have signed a MoU for collaboration and partnership in February 2009.

The Inter-American Development Bank's Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) and the Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF) have announced to jointly assist small-scale microfinance institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean in obtaining credit risk ratings and performance assessments. This project aims at encouraging regulators, rating agencies and micro-lenders to exchange information, best practices and lessons learned.

The total budget is co-shared by MIF, CAF and other participating institutions.

Read more at:
 http://www.iadb.org/news/detail.cfm?language=English&id=5414

The European Investment Bank - EIB is implementing its part of the EU recovery package, in order to tackle the impact of the financial crisis and to provide support to investments by SMEs. In the current financial context the increase in lending and funding and the willingness of the EIB to respond to this additional demand make necessary to raise the level of care that the Bank must apply to the management of its liquidity and in this sense the access to central bank liquidity via the ECB will facilitate EIB to accommodate the additional demand for its lending program currently foreseen.

Further information are available at the EIB website:
 http://www.eib.org/about/news/statement-on-eib-access-to-ecb-liquidity.htm

 Read also about the former EIB loans granted to SMEs.

Established in 2002 as a joint project of the EU and TOBB (The Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey), the main goal of ABIGEM Izmir (EU Turkey Business Centre) is to support regional economic development by offering professional business advise and training services to Turkish SMEs and Entrepreneurs.
The project has been financed by the EU until 2006 and the activities are now being carried out in the form of a Not For Profit Private Company with full sustainability. ABIGEM Izmir is a member of the INSME network since 2004.

 Download the references of ABIGEM Izmir.

Read more at:
 http://www.abigem.org

Call for bids

Issuer: Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE).

Subject and eligibility: This call, funded by Barclays Bank and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) with support from the Department of Business Enterprise Regulation and Reform (BERR), aims to encourage new research activities from within the academic community, support/advice/third sector organisations, consultants and practitioners. Applications are invited from individuals or teams, third sector organisations, academic researchers, consultants. Themes of interest for this call for proposals focus, in particular, upon the evaluations of public policy for fostering high-tech/high-growth firms; the serial entrepreneurship in high-tech industries; the survival and growth strategies of innovation and technology based firms and the role of incubation in the development of high-tech firms.

Budget: four separate grants of around �8-10,000 each with projects not exceeding 18 months duration.

Deadline: July 31st 2009.

Full details on the RAKE Initiative can be found at:
 http://www.isbe.org.uk/pagebuild.php?texttype=RAKEFund

Call for proposals

Title: CIP Eco-innovation first application and market replication projects

Issuer: Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation (EACI)

Aim: The call aims to promote the adoption of new and integrated approaches to eco-innovation, encouraging the uptake of environmental solutions and to increase innovation capacities of SMEs.

Budget: The indicative total amount available for this Call is EUR 30 million.

Deadline: 10 September 2009.

 To learn more about CIP Eco-innovation 2009, please click here.

Call for Trans-National Projects

The 6th call for trans-national projects of the ERA-NET EraSME initiative will be open until October 30, 2009 with 14 participating funding programs from the following regions/countries: Austria, Flanders (Belgium), Wallonia (Belgium), Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, Tuscany (Italy), Norway, Slovenia, Madrid (Spain), Sweden and The Netherlands. The call aims to strengthen the competitive capacity of SMEs by enhancing cooperation proposals in all fields of technology.

The on-line Project Building section provides additional tools in order to facilitate SMEs and RTOs in finding potential cooperation partners for participation in this call.

For detailed information and relevant documents see section "Help Desk" at:
 http://www.era-sme.net/public/

Call for Papers

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) has recently launched a call for papers Business creation in the Latin American context: from a Global Entrepreneurship Monitor perspective for inviting researchers to submit papers on Latin America and the Caribbean business system to be published in a special issue of the ACADEMIA - Revista Latinoamericana de Administración in the 2nd half of 2010. The journal accepts contributions in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

The paper has to be based on the GEM database for Latin America and the Caribbean and addressed among other topics, the following: 
 - The figure of the entrepreneur in creating new businesses (attitudes, activities and aspirations); 
 - Comparison of entrepreneurship conditions among countries or regions: contrasting Latin America with other regions or countries.

Deadline for papers: March 1st 2010.

For further information, please, visit the GEM website at:
 http://www.gemconsortium.org/article.aspx?id=84

EU Gateway Programme is an initiative funded and managed by the European Commission for the period 2008 to 2015. The Programme supports EU companies in their business strategy penetration toward Japan and Korea both on specific technological sectors with a high market potential and design sectors.
 
For further information about the EU Gateway Programme, its business missions and the coaching activity for EU entrepreneurs, please, contact the EU Gateway Project Officer at:
cmayali@eu-gateway.eu or visit the web site:
 http://www.eu-gateway.eu/go.php?nID=22&page=Home

INSME is among the new partners to market the initiative at wider European level.

The International Finance Corporation - IFC has recently released - in collaboration with infoDev - a report focusing on the adoption of innovative technologies which can help developing countries better cope with the effects of the crisis. In particular, it proposes some hypothetical interventions that may prove how to facilitate technology transfer (TT) from research institutions, how to improve technology flows between developed countries and emerging markets by analyzing the current TT business model and the role played by human resources and stakeholders.

 Download the Emerging Markets Technology Transfer Facility.

This recent European Commission's Communication covers different aspects of international cooperation in science, information and communication technologies.

It proposes ways to improve cooperation instruments with strategic partners in order to contribute to global sustainable development, to foster European S&T excellence and finally to increase the economic competitiveness to allow the EU companies to face competition from emerging economies.

 Download the EC Communication.

This website, created by a public-private partnership between the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the U.S. Commerce Department's International Trade Administration (ITA), aims to develop the business environment in around the world by leveraging best practices in entrepreneurial leadership.

To learn more, please, listen to the introductory podcast now or visit the website at:
 http://entrepreneurship.org/

TransCoSME - Transnational Co-operation of the network of NCP SME (National Contact Points for European Small and Medium Size Enterprises) - is a project part-funded by the European Commission under the Capacities Programme. It has recently launched the web portal of the TransCoSME project partners. This portal is a Network of European NCP SME providing with information and assistence to SMEs willing to participate in the 7th Framework Programme - FP7 projects. Furthermore, it provides also a tailor-made partner-search service.

TransCoSME issues a quarterly Newsletter available only for on-line subscribers.

To learn more, please visit the TransCoSME main page at:
http://www.ncp-sme.net

This monthly newsletter, issued by the Technology Innovation International association, (TII) provides updated information on services, events, publications, funding programmes and proposals related to Technology Transfer (TT) and innovation issues and pays a particular attention to TII association and members initiatives.

Non-members who wish to receive this newsletter may sign up on the site below:
 http://www.tii.org/eNewsletter

 For more information about Technology Innovation International, please, click here.

SME Update is the four monthly SME Techweb newsletter edited by the European Commission and conceived in an interactive format including news, results, policies and points of view in all areas of European research for SMEs.

 To receive any printed SME publication, contact Martina Daly.

Read more about the latest issue at:
 http://ec.europa.eu/research/sme-techweb/newsletter/issue5/index_en.html

2 July 2009
BiD Networking Latin America
Organised by BiD Network
Amsterdam, Netherlands

2 July 2009
INNO-DEAL Final Conference: 'How to Provide Solutions for Innovative and Creative Start-ups in Uncertain Times'
Organised by INNO-DEAL project
Ljubljana, Slovenia

6-7 July 2009
6th Asialics International Conference "Linkages in Innovation System: Global and Local Perspectives"
Organised by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)
Hong Kong, China

6-17 July 2009
The III Barcelona Clusters Summer School
Organized by IESE Business School - University of Navarra
Barcelona, Spain

9-11 July 2009
11th Session of the Advanced International Summer School (AISS 2009)
Organised by the e-Business Management Section of the Scuola Superiore ISUFI
Ostuni, Italy

10-13 July 2009
The 2nd International Multi-Conference on Engineering and Technological Innovation: IMETI 2009
Organized by the International Institute of Informatics and Systemics (IIIS)
Orlando, Florida, United States

13-14 July 2009
12th International Conference on Technology Policy and Innovation (ICTPI)
Organized by the University of Porto and INESC Porto with the support of UTEN Portugal (University Technology Enterprise Network) and in cooperation with the IC2 Institute of the University of Texas at Austin
Porto, Portugal

1-2 September 2009
3rd TCI Rural Cluster Conference - Cluster-based economic development in remote areas
Organised by the TCI Network
Bornholm, Denmark  

4-8 September 2009
10th International CINet Conference on Enhancing the Innovation Environment
Organised by the Continuous Innovation Network (CINet)
Brisbane, Australia

7-8 September 2009
Research and entrepreneurship in the knowledge-based economy
Organised by Cespri - Centre for Research on Innovation and Internationalization, Bocconi University
Milan, Italy

7-8 September 2009
European Conference on IP Management in European Research Co-operations"
Organised by the European Academy for Taxes, Economics and Law
Berlin, Germany 
  
9-11 September.2009
The 9th European Congress of CEEC RDAs and 1st Balkan Forum on Regional Development
Organised by EURADA, Enterprise Europe Network - EEN and the Business Support Center for SMEs
Ruse, Bulgaria

10-11 September 2009
4th European Conference on Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Organized by Academic Conferences International (ACI)
Antwerp, Belgium

15-17 September 2009
European Innovation Conference - Innovation in Mind
Organised by the Lund University in cooperation with Region Sk�ne
Lund, Sweden

16-18 September 2009
25th Anniversary Conference "Science Park's contribution to innovation systems: people, places, partnerships"
Organized by The United Kingdom Science Park Association (UKSPA) in partnership with International Association of Science Park (IASP)
Manchester, United Kingdom

23-25 September 2009
EuroBiO 2009 "The partnering and Tech Transfer event for the Bioindustry"
Co-organised by Package Organisation and Eurasanté - Entreprendre et Réussir
Lille, France 
 
23-25 September 2009
IASP Latin American Division Conference 2009
Organised by IASP - International Association of Science Parks
Monterrey, Mexico 
 
24-26 September 2009
XIX International RESER Conference "Public and Private Services in the New Global Economy"
Organised by the Kopint-T�rki Institute of Economic Research Ltd.
Budapest, Hungary 
 
24-25 September 2009
6th Annual Conference of the Technopolicy Network "Shaping Science Based Clusters"
Organised by the Technopolicy Network
Wageningen, The Netherlands 
  
28-30 September 2009
Promoting Innovation-based Entrepreneurial Opportunities in the UNECE Region
Organised by the United Nation Economic Commission for Europe - UNECE
Geneve, Switzerland 
 
30 September - 3 October 2009
XIV Baltic Dynamics Conference "The Dynamics of Innovation Spaces: Bringing Innovation to Society"
Co-organised by Baltic Association of Science/Technology Parks and Innovation Centres - BASTIC, KTU Regional Science Park, Kaunas Regional Innovation Centre and Kaunas University of Technology
Vilnius, Lithuania