Enterprise Europe Network is an initiative of the European Commission, being the largest network that supports businesses to innovate and grow in other markets, through specialized services provided by experts from over 600 centers with specific expertise, located in each region of the European Union and not only. All services are free of charge and can be personalized services, which meet the specific needs of each company that addresses an EEN center.

The mission of the Enterprise Europe Network Centers is to provide support to local companies to internationalize their business, by offering foreign trade consultancy, identifying new markets for products / services, initiating new contacts with potential partners, to develop together business / technologies or identifying funding opportunities for new business ideas, inventions and innovations.

1. Internationalization international-connections

Enterprise Europe Network provides support to companies interested in accessing new international markets and identifying new business opportunities through personalized business partner identification consulting services, providing information on growing markets, local business conditions, rules and fees necessary to enter a specific market.

The European Union has concluded more than 40 trade agreements with around 80 countries. Third country markets also provide export opportunities and are important sources of raw materials and goods. The network provides support to find out the benefits of each trade agreement, in terms of goods / services, investments or participation in tendering procedures in a trading partner country.

The range of services is varied, offering the possibility to all businesses to promote themselves, by filling in a descriptive form and registering it in the Enterprise Europe Network database, which contains profiles of requests and offers of products / technologies.

Interested companies can also participate in brokerage events or economic missions organized periodically at the level of the Network, in various fields of activity. Also, in the situation where a major business opportunity has been identified, in a certain sector of activity, a personalized economic mission can be organized.

2. Support in the Single Market partnership

The European Single Market is one of the European Union’s greatest achievements. Enterprise Europe Network provides specialized consulting services that help businesses overcome certain specific barriers to CE marking, EU law and intellectual property rights.

The Enterprise Europe Network provides information on relevant European legislation and policies for different categories of companies or economic sectors, specific conditions for the marketing of products / services or conditions for participation in international public tenders. Opinions on improving European business law are regularly collected through public consultations and then forwarded to European decision-makers.

If you’re interested in commercialization a new idea, product, service, or process, Enterprise Europe Network helps you learn how to protect yourself and take advantage of your business ideas and technologies. The Network also provides information and advice on intellectual property. We work closely with specialized organizations that support small businesses to use intellectual property rights, and we can put you in touch with these organizations and intellectual property experts – to save your time and money.

3. Innovation and technology transfer  innovation

In short, innovation is defined as the implementation of a new or significantly improved product / process / service.

In this sense, the Enterprise Europe Network provides support to innovative SMEs, through specific methods in order to assess the technological capacity of companies, identify innovative technologies, processes and expertise, identify technology needs:

  • Business scaling services – to establish the degree of readiness for internationalization;
  • Digital Innovation Ratio – a structured assessment of the company’s current performance in digital innovation, compared to benchmarks provided by companies around the world;
  • Innovation Management Evaluation – provides a global and clearly structured picture of the own performance of innovation management compared to the innovation performance of competitors in the same industry.

Technology transfer is the introduction into the economic circuit of technologies, knowledge and other results of the research and development process, in order to obtain new products, services, processes or significantly improved for the company or for the market.

Enterprise Europe Network provides the link services between the demand and supply of technology published in the Network’s centralized database. EEN experts can conduct an assessment of the client’s technological needs and subsequently select the identified offers / requests for offer to determine the features and benefits in each case.

4. Access to finance finance

Experts from the Enterprise Europe Network Centers provide help desk services, which include information on funding sources available at regional, national or European level, eligibility criteria and eligible activities under a specific call for projects, clarifications for elaboration a funding application, support for identifying partners for innovation-research-development projects.

5. Digitalization 

One of the main goals of the network is to support SMEs in the triple transition to sustainable, digital business models and to become more resilient.

To this end, the Network’s advisors provide services aimed at raising awareness among SMEs about the challenges and opportunities of digital technologies to improve their business models, helping them to adapt their processes, to use digital technologies. and develop new products and services using digital media.

Enterprise Europe Network centers will work closely with eDIH member organizations (Digital Innovation HUBs) to provide SMEs with integrated and quality digitization services, such as: technology provider identification services, digital solutions to target their portfolio to potential new markets, services for industry and public sector technology adopters to understand the digital transformation process and the roles of technology in the expansion process, services and consulting for a new managerial vision to stimulate innovation and digital technologies in organizations, support for organizations in the development of business and operational models for the digital economy, services for SMEs experimentation, adoption, technology transfer and digital skills.

6. Sustainability and resilience

Enterprise Europe Network experts will support SMEs to identify and address environmental and climate change issues and develop sustainable business models to become more resilient and to overcome the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Please contact Local Centre  Enterprise Europe Network for any of the above described services.