PROMETHEUS Networking Collaboration Survey
During the second semester of 2022, PROMETHEUS Partners – with especially the work of UTWENTE, UPATRAS and UKIM – created and distributed to the PROMETHEUS Associated Partners Network an online survey focused on prospective collaboration initiatives. In particular, the survey aimed at assessing associated partners’ needs and creating respective linkages with EIT Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) initiatives. The survey has been a part of PROMETHEUS project activities for building collaboration and trust between PROMETHEUS Network and selected KICs.
42 organisations responded in the survey providing key insights for the PROMETHEUS team to build upon strategies for impact-oriented collaborations. The majority of the participating organisations were SMEs. Countries represented through the respondents were mostly Greece and North Macedonia.
The majority of responding organisations were small in size (5-10 employees, 38.1%). However, larger organisations were also represented. At the same time, an important part of the respondents represented organisations working on environment and food related sectors. Still, the majority of respondents were not described by the options given.
A crucial part of the questionnaire reflected on participants’ interest in KICs activities. The majority of respondents exhibited high interest in KICs and in particular in EIT Food, EIT Climate and EIT Manufacturing.
It is noted that the majority of the participants exhibited also a relatively high interest in training initiatives.
Next, participants were asked to choose between KICs training options more suitable for their organization. The majority of respondents declared their interest in entrepreneurial activities bringing in front the need for small scale actions that link training initiatives with the everyday market.
Last but not least, participants were asked to declare the type of involvement most suitable within their organization. The majority of the organizations expressed their positive interest in partnerships development and as regards to funding, expansion of the market, and complementary expertise opportunities. In this context, the majority of participants (69%) gave a positive response also on the participation in internship programmes which can further promote the active involvement of the PROMETHEUS network, expecting its collaboration evolution with the KICs.
The aforementioned results had been extremely useful towards the PROMETHEUS Joint Activities plan. In particular, positive interest in the KICs was addressed as highly encouraging towards the further expansion and establishment of the PROMETHEUS network including collaborations with the respective KICs. Overall, results pave the way to impact-oriented activities towards the promotion of the educational, professional, curricular and extracurricular programmes of the respective KICs as they bring closer organizations’ needs and entrepreneurial capital.
All the aforementioned information are and will be appropriately valorized in order to inform and link the interested organizations with the respective KICs until the completion of the project. To this aim, a key activity is also the promotion of the Support by PROMETHEUS tool, a tool that can provide solid information for the interested parties.
A first step has been the addition of key information about the KICs in the PROMETHEUS platform (Support by PROMETHEUS tool) also as a way to raise interest over KICs activities to a wider audience. More engagement activities are expected to follow until the completion of the project including the organization of the PROMETHEUS Info Day. Stay tuned!