The INNOLABS project comes to an end

Submitted by Ana Victoria Pérez on 12 November 2019

The INNOLABS project has come to its end after 3 years of successful collaboration, support and progress towards developing new solutions to tackle European healthcare challenges.

INNOLABS project has been supported with €5million by Horizon 2020, the EU Framework Program for Research and Innovation, with the objective to in turn fund cross-sectorial solutions by SMEs which will deliver new products and services for healthcare. In this way, INNOLABS aimed to foster collaboration, transfer of knowledge and opportunities for SMEs from different countries and sectors (particularly the ICT, Health, Bio and Medicine sectors). INNOLABS organized two Open Calls for proposals for cross-sectorial teams of SMEs to present their disruptive solution, all centred around mHealth, personalized healthcare and ageing populations. Overall, €4million of the project budget were directly invested in companies resulting INNOLABS supporting more than 300 SMEs across Europe.

Now it’s time to reflect and have a look at the main actions and achievements of INNOLABS which have been possible through the continuous work of the consortium members, SMEs, teams, collaborators, experts in the field and members of the INNOLABS network.

The Open Calls

Throughout the past three years, INNOLABS has attracted the attention of 191 applicants and supported 84 companies who were enrolled in the two Acceleration Programmes after each corresponding Open Call. SMEs received a total of 50k€ in funding, divided into 25k€ direct funding and 25k€ in innovation services being more than 150 consortium support services and more than 100 external services provided. We have supported very promising projects, which have worked very hard over the months with us to deliver their next step on the solution, whether this be a new prototype, a fully commercial solution, to complete a medical trial, necessary software/hardware developments, and much more.In addition, all teams have worked hard to explore their opportunities, limitations and expected impact in terms of their market reach and business model. Together with the consortium members, as well as independent experts which companies could contract through the INNOLABS Vouchers, teams have worked to improve their IPR strategy, business model definition, route to market strategy, or learnt about regulatory issues and compliance.

One of the most important roles of INNOLABS was that start-ups and SMEs who secured funding and support to further develop their products, gained credibility and an improved business image that aided discussions with bigger companies, potential investors or health care providers about further product development, testing and commercialization. Specifically, the acceleration programme complemented SME resources, helping them finalize the technical design, further development of the product and testing the prototype in real environments. This led to reaching a higher level of market readiness, and helped companies shorten their time-to-market and optimize product development. In several SMEs the resources available also helped them to expand their working team. €22million new public/private growth funds secured or planned by SMEs in 1st Acceleration Cycle alone.

INNOLABS events

As well as the Open Calls and Acceleration Programmes, INNOLABS has organized numerous events, activities, workshops and seminars to support SMEs all across Europe. A first step, these activities were organized to provide SMEs the conditions for best ideas to thrive, through online and physical meetings and workshops. These ideas were then expected to coalesce in teams. For this INNOLABS provided both IT tools (matmaking portal) and facilitated physical encounters in major INNOLABS events. This includes two Ideas Contest Competitions, where prizes amounting a total of 36k€ were given in each! In addition, there have been three INNOLABS Hackathons, in Berlin, Gdansk and Oslo. As well as prizes, these events were a great way to benefit from networking, meeting other SMEs across Europe and the consortium members, starting this way new collaborations. We have also carried out other events aimed at creating business and making it easier for SMEs to obtain private funds such as Investors’ Day. In addition, these events were not only competitions, but also an opportunity for enthusiastic teams to get mentorship and guidance in creating new ideas from Mentors and Challenge Owners who can implement those ideas with them on the ground.

INNOLABS webinars

INNOLABS supported companies have benefited from a range of informative webinars led by experts in the field. Not only this, but Consortium members have organized further seminars in Oslo and Berlin, all with the option to join online, with the very relevant topics of Regulatory issues for Medical Devices and IPR Strategy.

We would like to thank to the European Commission to grant us the INNOLABS project and to allow us to support SMEs and enjoy seeing how their disruptive products have grown throughout the different periods of acceleration. We would also like to thank the people who have faithfully followed the progress of the project through our dissemination channels and all those who have participated in different ways, such as applicants and selected companies, evaluators, jurors, collaborators, external suppliers, investors, and more, as thanks to your involvement this project has been a success!

More information about INNOLABS:here

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