On 11 October 2011, Latvian ministerial cabinet meeting have agreed upon that available EU Structural Funds will be much better focused on micro, small- and medium sized enterprises than ever before.
The Portuguese Council of Ministers has approved the “Zero Fees For Innovation” decree (Taxa Zero para Inovação) in March 2011. The government wants to reward SMEs which undertake innovation efforts by reducing administrative fees for them for a period of two years.
Malta officially became a member of the “Eurostars” programme, a pan-European initiative spread across 33 countries aimed at stimulating companies leading to an international collaborative research project. With a fund of €400 million, contributed by the participating states and the European Union, the Eurostars initiative brings together companies from different countries to work on market-driven research projects.
Paris, June 2010. In a new flagship publication on “SMEs, entrepreneurship and innovation”, the OECD states that new and small firms have gained importance in the innovation process due to increasing income, more “niched” market demand and changing technologies.
