To facilitate the participation of SMEs in EU research programmes, the European Commission conducts its CRAFT Programme.

SMEs are major customers of the TAFTIE Member organisations (taftie.org) (The Association for Technology Implementation in Europe). TAFTIE Members have many years’ experience of assisting companies to participate in CRAFT projects. As a result of this experience the European Commission (DGXII SME unit) awarded a contract to TAFTIE to develop a toolbox, suitable for SMEs and intermediates, on how to participate in CRAFT projects.

The toolbox is a detailed guide for an SME/intermediate on participation in CRAFT projects. It covers important topics such as preparation of a proposal, financial conditions, co-operation agreements, contract negotiations, project management and exploitation of results. For the convenience of the reader, each chapter starts with a short summary. TAFTIE Members have included many tips from their own experience of assisting SMEs in CRAFT projects. These will help SMEs to avoid pitfalls and to save time and money as participants in CRAFT.

Members of TAFTIE and persons involved in the Task Force developing the toolbox:

ANVAR, France, www.anvar.fr, Edouard Bourgeois

CDTI, Spain, www.cdti.es

ENEA, Italy, www.enea.it, Maria Paola Breghi

FFF, Austria, www.fff.co.at

IWT, Flanders, Belgium, www.iwt.be, Freddy D’Hulster

Enterprise Ireland, www.enterprise-ireland.com, Kenneth O’Reilly

NUTEK, Sweden, www.nutek.se, Staffan Håkansson, chair

OMFB, Hungary, www.omfb.hu

RCN, Norway, www.sol.no/forskningsradet, Ole Andreas Flagstad

Scottish Enterprise, Scotland, www.scotent.co, uk

Senter, Netherlands, www.senter.nl, Nienke Tigchelaar

Technopol Brussels, Brussels Belgium, www.technopol.be, Jacques Evrard

Tekes, Finland, www.tekes.fi, Marku Sjostedt

TTGV, Turkey, www.ttgv.org.tr

VDI/VDE-IT, Germany, www.vdivde-it.de, Thomas Heimer

Sofia Carlsson B.S.c Econ. at The Swedish Institute of Production Engineering Reserach has been very helpful in putting together and finalising the work.

The aim of this CRAFT Toolbox

This Toolbox aims at helping Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and other organisations

• to assessing whether CRAFT is a possibility
• where to find more information and assistance
• how to prepare a proposal for a project
• how to manage and run the project
• how to exploit the results of the project

The final sections contain a glossary that deals with concepts that are central in this Toolbox.