A capacity building scheme between Switzerland and Croatia is connecting Croatian research and innovation intensive companies with cross-border value chains.
A capacity building buddy scheme set up between Switzerland and Croatia within the Eurostars Programme has proven to be a successful example of cross-border cooperation. It has increased the participation of Croatian entrepreneurs in Eurostars together with partners from Switzerland and other countries. The objective of this scheme is to connect Croatian research and innovation (R&I) intensive small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with cross-border value chains. It increases the level of international innovative cooperation of the bespoke Croatian SMEs, which allows for an increase in jobs and the push of innovative products to the market. Ultimately, it enables entrepreneurs to expand their international network for submitting competitive project applications for Eurostars together with international partners, and thereby gives them more equal chances for success. The numbers speak for themselves; from 2017 to 2019, Croatian project submissions went from four to fourteen and five projects were selected to participate in the Eurostars Programme.
This project began with the Framework Agreement between the Swiss Federal Council and the government of the Republic of Croatia in June 2015, which was set up to reduce economic and social disparities in Croatia. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic affairs (SECO), the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) and Innosuisse together with the Croatian ministries and the Croatian Agency for SMEs, Innovation and Investments HAMAG BICRO jointly decided to address innovation cooperation in the enlargement contribution, which led to the creation of this successful pilot-project. Croatia joined the European Union in 2013, and time was running short to implement an agreement. It was therefore crucial to build upon the well-established contacts in the inter-governmental EUREKA initiative and the well-designed Eurostars Programme and use them as an instrument for achieving an impact for the Croatian economy. It was important to use an instrument that could be implemented quickly, thus, the Eurostars Programme was chosen, as Croatia was already an active member within the EUREKA network. The whole process and organisational tasks such as agencies and national contact points were already set up, the only remaining action was to allocate the funds to a programme that provides a maximum of benefit to the Croatian companies with a minimum of administrative loss. The funding scheme for the cooperation is split between Switzerland (64%), Croatia (11%) and a top-up from the European Commission (15%).
EUREKA is an inter-governmental organisation with a bottom-up approach that serves as a facilitator and is an efficient platform for international cooperation in research, development and innovation. Eurostars is a joint programme between EUREKA and the European Commission, co-funded through Horizon 2020 and 36 Eurostars participating countries and third partner countries with a total budget of EUR 1.14 billion. The programme enables SMEs to build up value chains with their cooperation partners and offer their innovative products on the international market. According to Eureka’s project coordinator at Innosuisse, Colette John, the programme is especially suitable for this collaboration, as it takes the specificities of Switzerland and Croatia, such as the excellent Croatian ICT companies, into account and builds on them.
Concretely, Switzerland supports Croatian SMEs to gain competitiveness and visibility by investing into Eurostars and co-financing the travel and accommodation costs of Croatian SMEs for participation in brokerage events, workshops, company missions and training on project writing. In terms of the costs of the Eurostars Project Implementation, Switzerland covers for 85% and Croatia for 15%. The eligible costs covered by the co-funding scheme are project costs and promotion and support costs such as workshops, company missions, a voucher scheme for consultant services towards Croatian SMEs and brokerage events. Since the beginning of the Swiss-Croatian Cooperation in 2017, five brokerage events have been funded, in which Croatian participants accomplished more than 150 meetings with other participants. The most recent funded event, was the participation of ten Croatian companies at the Health Tech Hub Styria (HTH) Pitch&Partner 2020 held in Graz, Austria.
The five Croatian companies that are benefiting from the capacity building buddy scheme within Eurostars are ‘Sedam IT Ltd’, ‘Poli-mix Ltd’, ‘Reflecta Inteligentni Sistemi Ltd’, ‘Bella Software Ltd’ and ‘Roto Grad Ltd’. Three of the projects have been successfully completed, while the two others, Bella Software and Roto Grad, are still ongoing. Here is what the projects achieved; ‘Sedam IT Ltd’ finished a cash deposit management solution, ‘Poli-mix Ltd’ developed non-isocyanate polycarbonate polyurethane systems, and ‘Reflecta Inteligentni Sistemi Ltd’ developed an advanced contactless multifunctional control unit with gesture detection. The two ongoing projects are equally innovative; Roto Grad is working on a heavy metal recycling system for wastewater treatment, while Bella Software focuses on a wearable wrist device for women to detect and manage stress.
Switzerland brings value added to the Eurostars programme by sharing expertise, best practices and establishing links with experienced Swiss companies to form new or enlarge existing value-chains. Andreas Gut emphasised, that it is Switzerland’s obligation as a leading innovator and export-oriented country to be open for cooperation with others. In the capacity building scheme it is remarkable that Switzerland doesn’t just contribute by sharing best practice, but also by creating connections and networks, in which companies in Croatia and other countries can work together and bring each other to the next level.
It is important to highlight that the Swiss contribution obliged the governmental partners to engage significantly and that the established processes allowed them to focus on the most critical parts, namely the matchmaking, the consulting for proposal writing or the fast issuing of contracts and payments. HAMAG BICRO worked very efficiently and transferred the experience made in Switzerland successfully into their innovation ecosystem. They played a decisive role in regards to translating the tools Switzerland offered into effective mechanisms for the Croatian innovation ecosystem. The hope is to develop this pilot-project further within the second round of contributions between Switzerland and Croatia and to let it be an enabler of other cross-border collaboration where companies can bring each other to the next level in a very close context.
The future of Swiss-Croatian cooperation seems promising as both countries are currently discussing a renewal with hopefully an engagement over a longer timeframe. Ira Alaburić, Eurostars National Project Coordinator (NPC) and Sonja Šegvić, Deputy NPC at HAMAG BICRO, confirmed that Croatia is very interested to further develop this buddy scheme, “We appreciate this collaboration with Switzerland very much and hope that in the second round we can have more projects so that it can have an even bigger impact on the ecosystem”. Andreas Gut stressed that it is crucial to build up on the collaboration in the long-term and in a sustainable way and not to perceive it as a promotional one-time action. He also hopes that this collaboration can foster more bilateral contacts between countries as it should serve and be promoted, as an example of a successful capacity building scheme.