On July 26^th and 27^th, the INTECMED project celebrated its 2nd Steering Committee Meeting in an online format, with the participation of representatives from 4 different Mediterranean countries, as well as the Senior Expert of the Joint Technical Secretariat (JTS) of the ENI CBC Med Programme, Dr. Khaled Elsaadany. The partners are working closely together on the development of a mentorship programme, which will be applied to local beneficiaries in a tailored-made manner. 

During the two consecutive days, project team members discussed various issues and topics such as:

• The progress of the project's main achievements, as well as the challenges present due to the pandemic, and what alternatives are available to overcome these difficulties;

• The progress of the Business-Ready Innovation Mechanism (BRIM), which is a participatory, dynamic process of identifying and prioritising activities that link research and innovation with economic growth and social prosperity and will be implemented through a regional committee, the Regional Alliance for Innovation Transfer (RAIT), in each participatory region of the project, which are Andalusia (Spain), Patras (Greece), Alexandria (Egypt) and Cap Bon (Tunisia);

• The creation of the mentorship program, which will be applied by each of the RAITs to local beneficiaries in a tailored-made manner and will offer them the possibility for developing and marketing business-ready innovation. The local beneficiaries will be selected through the Call for Innovative Ideas;

• The beta version of the e-Bazaar platform, which will connect inventors and investors and will offer them a space to network, promoting exchange possibilities. 

The INTECMED project aims at facing common challenges of the areas involved in the project, all characterized by two phenomena: generalized economic slowdown and serious job deficit. Also in terms of innovation capacities and policies, the project target areas are heterogeneous. However, all have a common problem: the difficulties of the different actors to coordinate their actions and to find synergies.

Therefore, the INTECMED project aims to:

• Set-up a stable and long-lasting decision makers group at local level composed by all interested actors to innovation processes;

• Define an innovation strategy at local level that could coordinate all actions of different players;

• Create stable organisations that at local level can support innovative ideas to convert in business;

• Improve the competences in the field of business Planning and commercialisation of research results of at least 4 entrepreneurs/researchers, through the pilot projects mentorship programmes;

• Increase the innovation capability of the involved regions, and in particular those of the southern shore of the Mediterranean;

• Common target innovation policies and spends to increase the added value of results and alleviate cross border inequalities. It is expected that due to mentorship programmes and the financial support by subgrants, 12 new initiatives will be set up and 12 new stable jobs will be created.

For this reason, the main objective of INTECMED project is to develop an integrated innovation ecosystem at local level to support technological transfer and commercialization of research results, in order to improve the linkages between the various innovation players, notably the science system and higher education, the government (especially at local level), the private sector (mainly SMEs), and also the citizens.

Stay tuned for more information concerning the upcoming activities of the project.

Follow us! Facebook - LinkedIn - YouTube