Author Archive for Bernhard Schmid

Research for SME associations

Who knows this programm?

Research for SME associations

Aims at developing technical solutions to common problems to a large number of SMEs in specific industrial sectors or segments of the value chain  (like ICT) through research that could not be addressed under Research for SMEs.

Projects can, for example, aim to develop or conform to European norms and standards, and to meet regulatory requirements in areas such as health, safety and environmental protection. Projects must be driven by the SME associations, which are given the opportunity to subcontract research to RTD performers in order to acquire the necessary technological knowledge for their members.

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Does a successful exchange between science and economy exist?

Is there a field where the exchange between science and economy really works well? At events or in presentations people often praise the excellent cooperation between companies, universities and research institutions. Often technology parks are built with together with institutes of higher education or universities as this makes a good impression and seems to be promising, but in fact this is rarely the case.

I think that on closer inspection the exchange between science and economy turns out to be rather poor. Of course, there are some exceptions with respect to big enterprises. But in most cases, the only cooperation is hiring already educated students. So it would be reasonable to “force” SMEs to really cooperate. The only question is how to do so and how an increase in innovation can be achieved.

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A genius?

Two weeks ago I met a very interesting person who told me that he would like to revolutionize the IT sector. He has developed a software (90% finished) to strike a new path. The product is calld “MyPM” and can be described as follows:

“MyPM” is a method to:

  • describe business processes and their connections as hierarchical model
  • describe these business processes in a clear form, precisely and as detailed as desired
  • create automatically software from these descriptions
  • combine analysis, design and implementation
  • describe business processes and data simultaneously
  • create databases automatically from the model description
  • describe business processes without having to think of software development

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Innovation and knowledge exchange in Vienna

In Vienna, ICT enterprises benefit from numerous location factors, especially with respect to the work of service providing companies and universities but also clients, contractors and competitors.

An analysis of the innovation processes of the enterprises shows that they strongly focus on development and introduction on the market. It is less important for companies to permanently carry out research activities themselves. This lack of science activity strongly influences their innovation power: more often enterprises try to improve already existing products than concentrating on a completely different innovation process.

The main obstacles within innovation processes are high costs, economic risk and a lack of financial aid.

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Vienna, Austria – A Spot of Excellence

Today I would like to present you one Viennese research institution and one company (Competence Center) successfully involved in R&D-activities. Both of them are quite important for our city.

These two organizations have an excellent international reputation and both of them are running successful cross-border projects and have finalized some very interesting ones in the past.

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Review: Vienna IT Enterprises (VITE) trip to Belgium 16th-18th of April, 2008

I am very glad to have the opportunity to be a nowEurope contributer. With my first article I would like to greet and welcome all readers of this page warmly.

The Brussels office of the Vienna Business Agency (VBA) and VITE organised from the 16th to the 18th of April 2008 a business trip to Brussels and Leuven for IT enterprises from Austria and the CENTROPE region. Continue reading ‘Review: Vienna IT Enterprises (VITE) trip to Belgium 16th-18th of April, 2008′