As CORDIS reports, the EU's Sixth and Seventh Framework Programmes (FP6 and FP7 respectively) are instrumental in providing critical financial support to businesses doing cost-intensive research in the fields of biotechnology, medical technologies and bioengineering.

Success factors for FP participation

A number of success factors that boost a business participating in EU-funded projects have been identified by the KAPPA-Health project's study: the SMEs' core activity should correspond to the research project; participating members should have previous FP project experience; expert or specialised services support can help identify the role of each partner and expected results; SMEs would benefit by collaborating with partners from an existing network; smaller projects are key; and SMEs should take advantage of their strong ties to the academic research world. Another significant factor is that 90% of the SMEs participating in FP6 projects successfully co-financed the project, according to the KAPPA-Health team.

Up to 80% of the 200 SMEs polled by the KAPPA-Health project said the biggest upshot for participating in these projects was obtaining greater knowledge. They also highlighted the fact that the EU projects helped them expand their network, build a stronger client base, access complementary expertise and gain stronger footholds on the global market. All in all, over 90 percent of SMEs state that their participation in EU-funded projects is a success; half of these SMEs have already yielded commercial return.

Anoth outcome of the poll was thatthat around 80% of successful SMEs took part in more than one project, while 83% of the projects generate research contacts, and 50% business contacts. SMEs favour taking part in small or medium-sized projects because they are easier to handle, according to the researchers.

Source: CORDIS website, as accessed on March 26, 2010.