What is the EEN & how can it help Cluster 2 NCPs and applicants?

What is the EEN?
 

The Entreprise Europe Network (EEN) is a network of expert advisors active worldwide. It brings together experts from member organisations that are renowned for their excellence in business support.

Member organisations include:

• chambers of commerce and industry
• regional development organisations     
• universities and research institutes
• innovation agencies
  
   

What does it do?

In general terms, the EEN offers business and technology transfer services through:

• The EEN platform: Thousands of offers and requests from companies looking for business, technological and research cooperation are published on the platform. With the support of EEN advisors, companies or other actors can disseminate the profile, offers and requests as well as partner searches.
• Brokerage events: Organized by EEN partners in different countries around many themes, these events allow participants interested in similar topics and activities to meet each other and discuss collaboration opportunities.

The Network also uses a variety of official and informal means to foster collaboration as well as individual development of an idea, product, service or project.

 

How can the EEN help Cluster 2 NCPs?

As you know, in a lot of countries Horizon Europe NCPs and EEN advisors are hosted by the same organization or may work in the same building. In some cases, like in Brussels, they are the same person! Collaboration between NCPs and EEN advisors can be quite useful as the two programmes are quite complementary. As an NCP, you could share any partner searches for existing consortia or any actors who would like to find a consortium. EEN advisors can also keep you up-to-date on any events, online or on site, so you can share them with your clients as needed and help them meet partners for future collaborations.

The EEN is also organized around what we call Sector Groups, and I am a member of the Sector Group Cultural and Creative Economies. SGs have regular meetings online and also across Europe in different places periodically. Liaising with relevant sector groups is an opportunity to meet a network of colleagues who work on similar topics at the same time, exchange ideas and potential partnerships or projects. Having links to EEN SGs would be very useful for an NCP network, and in this case we already have this link, and we should use it!

This was a brief summary of what the EEN is and how it can be used to boost our activities both as individual NCPs and as a network. I would like to take this opportunity to ask you to let me know if you have any concrete ideas on how we can collaborate with the Enterprise Europe Network, or contact me if you need any help or advice on how to engage the EEN in your own country.