Innovate-Med (project)

[http://www.innovatemed.euInnovate-Med] project is an initiative part-financed by the European Commission under the MED programme. It has allocated a budget of almost 1.09 million euro from April 2009 to September 2011. This project aims at developing innovative actions for trade and enterprises in the Mediterranean basin.

Context

In an increasingly competitive environment, Mediterranean SMEs working in traditional economic sectors are pushed to develop new competitive strategies if they aspire to survive in the global economy. South European territories are mainly characterized by SMEs with deep-rooted traditions and local products, but also fragmented and restrained by a know-how gap. The only solution for them is clustering to increase competitiveness and attractiveness in the international arena.

Taking this into account, Med project, part-financed by the European Commission through the Med programme, tries to take advantage of complementary situations in the Mediterrean area to jointly set up an innovative cluster approach for SMEs internationalisation. After a three-step process, partners will implement a strategy of marketing and promotion for two horizontal clusters in traditional sectors. Synergies among partners will be optimised in order to achieve economic critical mass for export and create high added value.

The active involvement of chambers of commerce and development agencies will ensure the bottom-up participation of the key business stakeholders and a top-down process of capitalisation of results. This initiative is led by Province of Naples (Italy) and Fundación Comunidad Valenciana – Región Europea (FCVRE) is in charge of international dissemination of the project.

Origin

The Province of Naples, Lead Partner, will capitalise on its initiatives carried out in the 2000-2006 Campania Region Operational Programme, PLAIT (Public Local Agency for International Trade) which experimented marketing models and cluster approaches for SMEs in high value sectors such as food, fashion and crafts with potential for internationalisation. The transfer of this approach and the exchange of experience with partners with similar SME economies to design new models for trade and enterprise lies at the basis of this proposal.

Planned outcome

Identification of innovative clusters and strategies to foster and promote them;
Transferable innovative model for internationalisation of clusters;
Local SMEs peer learning and capacity building in networking;
Development of service-sharing guidelines for MED productive clusters
Experimental cluster marketing and international promotion strategy;
Identification of market opportunities in sample innovative sectors.

External links

Contacts

Lead Partner: Province of Naples — Piazza Matteotti, 1- 80133 Naples (Italy) - tel.: +39 081 7949464 Fax: +39 081 7949854 e.mail: gennaropollice@provincia.napoli.it web: www.provincia.napoli.it

Technical assistance: I.R.VA.T. - Institute for promotion and protection of regional products — Centro Direzionale Is. G8 - 80143 Naples (Italy) - tel.: +39 081 7500538 - Fax: +39 081 7502994 - Email: amministrazione@irvat.it — Web: www.irvat.eu

Communications: Fundación Comunidad Valenciana — Región Europea — Rue de la Loi 227 / 227 Wetstraat — B-1040 Brussels (Belgium) - Ph. +32 2 282 41 60 - Fax: +32 2 282 41 61 - email: gmartinie@delcomval.be — web: www.uegva.info