The National Center for Research and Development (NCRD) partner of PPI4MED project in Jordan was invited as a speaker to the EMPHASIS  project - “Euro-Mediterranean Network Facilitating Market Uptake of Innovations from SMEs,” an open day organized by the University of Science and Technology in Amman on Thursday 24^th March 2022 .

The event aimed to introduce the OPEN INNOVATION Model which consists of a cross-border cooperation platform for startups and SMEs to develop their services and products, creating new job opportunities and offering technical support to help them in innovation, technology transfer and capacity building. During the focus groups,  networking sessions between experts took place in different sectors of national priority (water, agriculture, energy, transport) to exchange knowledge.

The open day included presentations from various relevant authorities and stakeholders. Eng. Maha Aqra, the PPI4MED coordinator from NCRD, presented an introductory speech to the participants, introducing the project, the public procurement for innovation model and the living labs to provide an opportunity for companies from the private sector to cooperate with universities and research centers to develop a product or service needed by government institutions, especially in the field of agriculture, energy, waste management and technology, as well as to promote the transfer of scientific research results and outputs in universities, institutions and research centers to be registered as patents and commercialized.