Joint efforts by the European Defence Agency (EDA) and the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) to support dual-use small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) led to a first concrete result this week (27 June) when a Dutch SME named IC3D Media, which had been put forward by EEN, was allowed to participate in the EDA’s expert cell (CapTech) dedicated to ‘System of systems, Battlelab and Modelling & Simulation’.
It was the first time that a dual-use SME recommended to the EDA by the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) was offered this opportunity. The CapTech meeting allowed the company in question, which develops gaming techniques for training of police agents and soldiers, to showcase its innovative products and know-how, as well as to discuss potential collaborations, synergies and future contract opportunities with the EDA’s participating Member States and their stakeholders. As a next step, IC3D Media could also participate to the EDA’s Modelling & Simulation platform which offers a virtual meeting room for SMEs active in this particular domain.
The fact that this Dutch SME, with the support of the Enterprise Europe Network, was given the possibility to access the EDA CapTech demonstrates that the cooperation between the EDA and the EEN works effectively and that it can yield practical results; it also shows the way to follow by other SMEs.
EEN is a network coordinated by the European Commission’s DG GROWTH (and co-supported by the EU COSME programme) providing SMEs with a wide range of free-of-charge services delivered by several hundreds of local points of contact in native language.
In a recent ‘Assessment of defence-related SME access to the COSME Programme’, the EDA explored several opportunities for the defence sector within the EU Programme COSME (Competitiveness of SMEs) 2014-2020. As a result of this study, defence-related SMEs and clusters can access the newly created EDA’s ‘COSME web-platform’.
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