On 14th April 2006, at IRC-EGE Conference Hall in Izmir, the second workshop of EU 6th Framework Project EASIER in Turkey was organized by TAGES in cooperation with The Scientific & Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), the Turkish Informatics Foundation (TBV) and the Innovation Relay Center EGE (IRC-EGE).
On 14th April 2006, at the IRC EGE Conference Hall, the second workshop of the EU 6th Framework Programme Project EASIER in Turkey was organized by TAGES in cooperation with the Scientific & Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), the Turkish Informatics Foundation (TBV), and the Innovation Relay Center EGE (IRC –EGE).
The target group of the workshop was ICT SMEs in the city of Izmir, selected from among the Top 500 ICT firms, who had not previously participated in FP6. 13 persons from 12 SMEs attended the event.
It was a one day program, which started off with a presentation of the EASIER project, which seeks to ease the process of finding projects, preparing project proposals, and finding partners for SMEs in EU R&D Programmes as FP6 and FP7 Programmes. The programme continued with information sessions on EASIER Audit which aim to determine the current situation of SMEs. After the EASIER Audit Session, the event continued with the training on the EU framework programmes, on the STREP project proposal preparation and writing and with the information sessions on the Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) in FP7 and EASIER Project supports.
Along the training it also involved an application exercise in project proposal preparation, in which participating groups shared and developed their project ideas and presented it to the auditors. The Workshop ended with an evaluation, in which participants stated their interests in future activities and supports of the project.
The expectations of SMEs from the EASIER project were listed as a cooperation platform, a network for finding projects and project partners, and a source of information and assistance on further details on the FP7. Furthermore as a result of EASIER Audits, SMEs’ needs for assistance and support on project proposal writing and running were appeared as significant issues. In this sense SMEs claimed their demand of support from EASIER project in the evaluation forms.
For the registration to the event, participants registered in the EASIER database, in which the ICT SMEs of the participating 12 European countries will also be registered, fostering potential project cooperation with the assistance of EASIER’s regional consultants.
The Future workshop of the project is planned in Istanbul on 17 May at Boğaziçi University under the leadership of the Turkish Informatics Foundation (TBV). In this event the same training and information sessions will be realized for ICT SMEs inIstanbul.
For registration in the EASIER Database, please click on www.eti-easier.org, followed by EASIER for SMEs or you may also go directly to www.easierproject.com
Some audit statistics from the workshop: