An EU-funded project that focuses on supporting SMEs to introduce innovation into their organisational culture.
Six partners from Germany, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Spain are currently working on the Erasmus+ project WINN – “Workouts for Innovation Leaders”. This project arises as a response to the problems encountered in organisations today, as the competitiveness of companies depends to a large extent on the ability to innovate. Especially SMEs in non-technological sectors have difficulties in establishing innovation capacity and fostering innovation culture. Practice shows that even companies with ample resources to set up systems and programmes have difficulties in establishing an inclusive and effective innovation culture.
The project was launched last October 2020 and aims to create a specific training programme that prepares SME executives to behave innovatively and spread the culture of innovation in their organisations. Specifically, the aim is to ensure that SME leaders in non-tech or low-tech sectors are prepared to lead innovation by developing the right mindset and adapting their behaviours and beliefs to enable true innovation leadership. After the two-year duration of the project, the WINN consortium expects to contribute to address the identified needs.
Under the leadership of the Economic and Social Development Association, ADES, located in Romania, the consortium has started working on different activities to ensure the main objective of the project. The activities that we have developed so far in the project are:
- Due to COVID-19, the first consortium meeting was held online on 10 November 2020. The meeting was led by ADES, the project coordinator. Representatives of all partner organisations met, discussed the steps to achieve the project objectives and defined the first activities.
- After this meeting, there have been 2 more online meetings on 8 January and 18 March, where the consortium has shared the results of these first activities.
- A desk research on the inclusion of innovation in low/low tech organisations in the partner countries has been completed and more than 170 participants, all managers or executives from the 5 countries participated and offered their knowledge, experiences, realities and opinions to the project.
- An official website has been produced and social media pages have been created and are constantly updated to keep in touch with our target group.
To keep up to date with our progress visit our website and follow us on our social networks
https://www.facebook.com/WINNEUProject