The general objective of the project is to contribute to smart growth of Southern regions of Poland by increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of investments in innovation and by contributing to more efficient connection of links along the innovation chain and by this – to contribute to the smart EU growth. The specific objectives of the project are: (1) efficient management of the relation between SME (beneficiary of the European Innovation Council (EIC) Pilot under H2020) and the coach in purpose to increase the number of projects financed within Horizon 2020 programme completed with a successful commercialization and (2) development of regional SME innovation management capacity: by carrying out innovation management gap analysis, development of the tailored action plan for increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of their innovation management system and implementation of the targeted actions to address bottlenecks and weak points between the innovation capabilities and innovation goals. The objectives will be achieved by performing two kinds of service packs: Key Account Manager and Enhancing SME innovation management capacity, based on the common for the whole Enterprise Europe Network standard, compliant with European Innovation Management standards - CEN/TS 16555:1. The project is relevant to the Work Programme in Horizon 2020 and helps to overcome lack of capacity in innovation management, recognised as an important barrier in creating economic impact on innovation activities in SMEs. The project is addressed to the specific challenge and scope of the topic and offers mentoring and coaching services to beneficiaries who need this help. The project will make SMEs high quality innovation support services available where these are absent or unaffordable on local markets. The project aims at support projects with an European dimension that lead to radical changes in how business is done.

MEZeroE is an EU distributed open innovation ecosystem for: (i) developing nZEB Enabler Envelope technology solutions ; (ii) transferring knowledge; (iii) matching testing needs with existing facilities; (iv) providing monitoring in living labs and; (v) standardizing cutting-edge solutions coming from SMEs and larger industries, to foster inclusive change in the building sector, being accessible via a single-entry point to all users. MEZeroE allows the development of ground-based solutions focused on carbon neutrality and healthy indoor environment, validated with advanced assessment methods and services, recognized protocols and long-term vision to embrace industry 4.0 trends, rapid decision making and customer-centric requirements. MEZeroE accompanies enterprises in adopting the open innovation approach comprising discovery (phase 1), empowering (phase 2), and exploiting (phase 3). MEZeroE will be accessed via a single-entry point web-based multi-side virtual marketplace, including 9 Pilot Measurement & Verification Lines (PM&VL) and 3 Open Innovation Services (OIS) covering training, business model development, systematic IP and knowledge management. MEzeroE will fast-track prototypes to the market as fully characterized products. MEZeroE virtual marketplace provides structured knowledge to different stakeholders with a pragmatic and well-grounded mid to long-term ambition of developing and consolidating a trusted expertise network, to be active and self-sustaining well beyond the project timeline. Based on synergies among partners, existing channels and a dedicated marketing strategy MEZeroE will exploit 3 revenue lines to ensure a 4x leverage factor vs. EU contribution. These revenue streams include: (I) memberships (benefit of web-based platform manager); (ii) consultancy for innovation and IPR protection (benefit of OIS developers) and (iii) incremental revenues of industrial partners (benefit of users) thanks to product transferred to market.

The general objective of the project is to contribute to smart growth of Southern regions of Poland by increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of investments in innovation and by contributing to more efficient connection of links along the innovation chain and by this – to contribute to the smart EU growth. The specific objectives of the project are: efficient management of the relation between SME (beneficiary of the SME Instrument) and the coach in purpose to increase the number of projects financed within Horizon 2020 programme completed with a successful commercialization and development of regional SME innovation management capacity: by carrying out innovation management gap analysis, development of the tailored action plan for increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of their innovation management system and implementation of the targeted actions to address bottlenecks and weak points between the innovation capabilities and innovation goals. The objectives will be achieved by performing two kinds of 7-days service packs: Key Account Manager and Enhancing SME innovation management capacity, based on the common for the whole Enterprise Europe Network standard, compliant with European Innovation Management standards - CEN/TS 16555:1(2013). The project is relevant to the Work Programme in Horizon 2020 and helps to overcome lack of capacity in innovation management, recognised as an important barrier in creating economic impact on innovation activities in SMEs. The project is addressed to the specific challenge and scope of the topic, as set out in the Work Programme and offers mentoring and coaching services to beneficiaries who need this help. The project will make SMEs high quality innovation support services available where these are absent or unaffordable on local markets. The project aims at support projects with an European dimension that lead to radical changes in how business (product, processes, services, marketing etc.) is done.

The project has been organising in our region for 17 years. The European Researchers' Night (ERN) will be implemented in 2024 (27th September) and 2025 (26th September) for the 18th and 19th time. Researchers at Schools activities will be implemented for the 3th and 4th time. All the project activities will be organised under the slogan 'SUPER-HEROS-RESEARCHERS SAVE THE WORLD'. With this tagline and reference to the ideas and characters of super-heroes known to everyone, especially children and young people, we want to draw the public's attention more strongly to the role played by scientists in the development of the world, in the fight against environmental and climate threats, and how inventions affect our everyday lives. These are the key areas defined as EU Research and Innovation Missions and the objectives of the European Green Deal. The main goals of the project are: to bring science and the profession of researchers closer to the general public and make the public more aware of the impact of the work of researchers’ on our daily lives, to develop interest in research and scientific careers in the youth. Scale of the project is huge to show the wide scientific heritage and achieve project's goals: - ERN 2024-2025: each year ca. 2,000 activities organised (incl. interactive workshops, demos and experiments, face to face meetings with researchers, science shows etc.), ca. 2,200 researchers, emploees and students as well as 110 scientifis circles from 60 institutions involved, ca. 50,000 people will participate in each ERN, - Researchers at Schools activities in 2024-2025: 700 workshops, demos and meetings with researchers, 240 scientists/workers and students involved, 25,000 pupils and 800 teachers from 270 Polish schools will benefit. The project has European dimension: due to its broad awareness campaign, we estimate that 7 million people will be made aware of the project every year.

The project Malopolska Researchers' Night will be implemented in the years 2014 and 2015 respectively for the eighth and ninth time. The event has already permanently inscribed in the calendar of Malopolska scientific events, enjoying growing from year to year popular among participants and becoming one of the biggest Nights in Europe. In 2013, this event was attended by over 55 thousand people, while in the first year of the project (2007) the event was attended only by 3.5 thousand people. The event program specified in the application is even richer than before – it will take over 1 thousand activities, mainly interactive workshops, presentations, demonstrations and experiments as well as shows with the participation of scientists. It is estimated that 60 thousand people will participate in the events in 2014 and 65 thousand people in 2015. Malopolska Researchers' Night is to first of all show participants how interesting is the work of scientists and how fascinating they are people. Through fun, in accessible and understandable way for everybody, we want to show that all around us is the science, and that scientists in their laboratories are working every day to make our life better, easier and more modern. The main motto of the project for the years 2014 and 2015 will be to present the successes of Malopolska scientists working in international scientific-research teams. The event will be held in six cities of the Region: Krakow, Tarnow, Nowy Sacz and Niepolomice and - for the first time in 2014 - also in Skawina and Andrychow. In addition, it is planned the live broadcast from selected locations via event website. The program will be prepared by almost 900 researchers, more than 1 600 students, about 120 research groups from more than 30 partners. Thanks to the extensive promotional campaign the information about the event will reach to nearly 3.5 million people each year.