On December 11-12 December 2018, a representative of South Muntenia Regional Development Agency attended, as Coordinator of Danube S3 Cluster project, at the "Sector Group Chair Meeting", organized by the Executive Agency of SMEs - European Commission, in Brussels.

Danube S3 Cluster project, coordinated by South Muntenia RDA, as well as its expected results, were presented at the ”Sector Group Chair Meeting”.

The event was a good opportunity for South Muntenia Regional Development Agency, Coordinator of Danube S3 Cluster project, to present the project, to find synergies with the Enterprise Europe Network and regional strategies of smart specialization and to create complementarities between the two funding tools (COSME and the Transnational Danube Program).

The main objective of the Danube S3 Cluster project is to stimulate the entrepreneurial ecosystem based on innovation in the Danube area, through the elaboration of cluster policies in the context of RIS 3, and also through improvements made to the know-how and innovation management abilities and by promoting transnational cooperation of clusters in the agro-food industry.

Sector groups play an important role in providing in-depth partnerships, innovation and internationalization services to some of the best SMEs in Europe. Their sectoral expertise places them in a unique position to provide companies with services that reflect the best networking activities of the network, combined with their expertise in the key sectors of economic activity. Through the exchange of experience, the members of the sector groups contribute to the creation and development of competences within the network.

The main objective of this event was to inform the chairmen of the sector groups about the news from the Enteprise Europe Network. The meeting covered important topics such as the implementation of the network vision, the new IT features of the network, future funding opportunities for SMEs from the European Defence Fund. Issues related to SME-accelerating business, COSME public procurement actions, as well as news about the Network's Scale-up initiative were also mentioned.

The event was attended by the chairmen of the 17 Enterprise Europe Network Sector Groups as well as representatives of EASME and DG GROW.

South Muntenia Regional Development Agency is a member of the Enterprise Europe Network, being the Coordinator of PROSME project, funded by the COSME Program. The overall objective of the project is to ensure access to business development services through high-quality, free and easily accessible transnational cooperation provided by the Enterprise Europe Network.