From “best practice” to “next practice”: How to improve innovation support for SMEs?

While innovative SMEs have been among the key target groups of many regional, national and European innovation support measures, there is still much room for improvement in increasing complementarities and unlocking SMEs’ full potential in terms of innovation. Taking up the ideas put forward in a comprehensive studycommissioned by DG Enterprise and Industry, an expert workshop entitled “From “best practice” to “next practice”: How to improve innovation support for SMEs?” was held in Brussels on 16 February to discuss the next steps towards appropriate redesign of European level innovation support mechanisms.

The analysis carried out by Innova Europe and Technopolis Group focused on the key barriers to SME innovation and reviewed currently available SME support measures. It proposed a number of novel forms of cooperation between the European, national and regional levels like the coordinated opening of national programmes for foreign participation, the up-scaling of successful and scalable national practices to the European level but also a faster roll-out of European tools where they have proven effectiveness in diverse environments.

Most workshop participants agreed that the existing support measures as well as services provided by innovation consultants and other intermediaries are still too deeply rooted in the old innovation paradigm that primarily focused on R&D and technological aspects of innovation. Carlo Pettinelli, Director for Industrial Innovation and Mobility Industries at DG Enterprise and Industry, outlined that “innovation is still often misunderstood as the outcome of R&D, while in reality it is significantly broader and more complicated”.  This was supported by Gertraud Leimüller representing Creative Wirtschaft Austria, who argued that ”non-technological innovation has growing importance in all economic sectors, even in manufacturing”.  Along the same lines, the danger of being locked up in the old, “safe” measures for supporting SMEs was discussed. The authors of the study strongly advocated for leaving room for more experimentation in designing suitable solutions for the future, in addition to rolling out existing good practices and finding ways of opening up successful measures at regional/national levels to other Member States.

The experts found that in planning future actions, it has to be kept in mind that “small companies are not miniatures of large enterprises” as pointed out by Kjell-Håkan Närfelt from VINNOVA, Sweden. Indeed, great diversity exists also inside the SME community and therefore a variety of different and more tailored support mechanisms are needed. But the focus in support provision must clearly be on the small share of SMEs that really are (or in the future will be) responsible for clear innovation results and creation of new jobs.

While many ‘good practice’ instruments to address barriers to SME innovation exist, a lack of systemic approaches to reach impact on the restructuring of industries is observed. A new policy approach of a “dialogue oriented technology policy”, that intends to root innovation and industrial policy deeper in society, was presented by the German region of Baden-Württemberg. This policy builds on structured and moderated dialogues on different levels: a classical sectoral dialogue based on clusters, thematic dialogues on relevant horizontal topics like skills, and sub-regional dialogues on, for example, specialisation. All these are brought together in an overarching dialogue on economic perspectives. Reflecting on the presentation Allan Mayo, Chair of  the Expert Panel on Service Innovation in the EU, emphasized that the Expert Panel had come to a remarkably similar conclusion in the concept of large-scale demonstrators for new industrial value chains, which addresses societal challenges and shall be backed by a “dialogue oriented technology policy”. This shows how such political endorsement can be achieved.                                                          

The Commission’s proposals for the upcoming EU programmes (Horizon2020 and COSME) for the period 2014-2020 are currently being discussed by Member States and the European Parliament. Following presentations on the SME support in these programmes, the discussion drew attention to the role of existing pan-European networks such as the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) for the implementation of some of the study’s recommendations. High quality mentoring and coaching services for the beneficiaries of the SME instruments in the future programmes could be provided by the Enterprise Europe Network with strong financial support from regions and Member States. This will require not only an adaptation of services provided by the network partners but also enhancing the services available to SMEs in the regions.

Helene Dage, Deputy Head of the Support for Industrial Innovation Unit at DG Enterprise and Industry, pointed out that internationalisation and innovation often go hand in hand and confirmed that the Commission´s efforts are aimed at providing new and easily accessible instruments which should be guiding the long term strategies of the European SMEs to increase both their innovation and internationalisation activities.

Although many successful practices exist and many opportunities for joint learning between regions are offered, the study identified a ‘learning challenge’ as comprehensive learning circuits including the benchmarking of tools and twinning are too small, while larger programmes only provide elements of the full learning circuit. The authors of the study recommended to develop a stable and permanent framework for the development of policy learning processes, including a dedicated, professional (e.g. secretariat) structure that can develop, implement and follow up specific learning instruments such as twinning, benchmarking, staff exchange and peer review mechanisms. 

At the end of the workshop, three existing learning environments were presented. The INNO-Partnering Forum was introduced as an example of an existing learning platform by Kjell-Håkan Närfelt from VINNOVA, Sweden. Erwin Siweris, from INTEREG IVC secretariat in Lille, France, highlighted the opportunities offered by Interreg IVC programme to support development of interregional learning environments. Hussein Sattaf from the Enterprise Europe Network Training Unit presented the learning tools offered by EEN. In the following discussion, Joachim Baldermann from the Baden Württemberg representation in Brussels pointed out that the existing instruments do not take into account the asymmetric needs of different European regions. Very simple tools that just bring people together and support the integration of good practices are needed in addition to more complex tools. Concluding the session, Sven Schade, Policy Officer for Innovation Support at DG Enterprise and Industry, promised that DG Enterprise and Industry will take up the recommendations, discuss them further with the INNO-Partnering Forum and he also suggested that ”an innovation voucher for innovation agencies implemented through a stable secretariat function could be a significant step forward”.