Vision2020 Event: “Horizon 2020 for SMEs”

Vision2020: The Horizon Network will be holding its first Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (SME) information event in London on 25th October 2013, hosted by Imperial Consultants (ICON). The theme of the event will be connecting SMEs with research and technology organisations in preparation for the upcoming €70 billion Euro “Horizon 2020” European funding programme.

SMEs are one of the groups that stand to significantly benefit from Horizon 2020, and they will be allocated at least €7 billion Euros for research and innovation work. The EU is also making significant efforts to unlock the vast amount of valuable research and Intellectual Property that is held by universities and research centres across Europe, through fast-track to market schemes designed specifically for innovating SMEs. Previous EU funding programmes have made some progress towards improving their usefulness to SMEs however significant problems remain to be addressed, including complex rules, long development timescales and a complicated landscape of potential public, academic and enterprise collaborators.

Vision2020: The Horizon Network is a new networking platform that is taking a novel approach towards solving these problems and to addressing the challenges and opportunities presented by Horizon 2020. By the end of 2013 Vision2020 will have grown to span three key sectors: 

• A group of world-leading research organisations. The core of this group is already in place, including several of the top ten global participants in EU funded research; holding significant expertise and real influence; 
• Leading ‘blue-chip’ companies; 
• Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

The main goal of the Vision2020 network is to ensure that all of its subscribers are ideally placed to receive maximum benefit from the Horizon 2020 funding programme. For SMEs this means: 

• Enabling SMEs to link up with relevant research groups in world-leading research organisations across Europe. These groups may be able to collaborate on profitable research projects, perform innovative research, or they may hold existing Intellectual Property that can be developed into commercial products by SME partners; 
• Exploring and implementing new simplified methods for SME participation within Vision2020 consortia that address the industrial leadership priority areas outlined by the European Commission

Bernd Reichert (Head of SME Unit in DG Research & Innovation, European Commission) will be a keynote speaker at the event; presenting opportunities in Horizon 2020 for SMEs, alongside representatives from the UK Government's Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, representatives of SMEs that are active in European research and innovation, and representatives of the Vision2020 platform. This event is free for SMEs and Vision2020 members (one representative per organisation) and will be the first in a series of Vision2020 SME outreach events that will be held across Europe.

The location of the event is the Sir Alexander Fleming building in Imperial College London's South Kensington Campus, London.

Full details of the event can be found here: Vision2020 network