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The ICT Cluster's Initiatives for 2009

28/01/2009

Currently underway is our research to pinpoint how the current economic climate is affecting technology SMEs in the West Midlands. The information we gather will be passed onto supporting organisations, such as UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), Chambers of Commerce and Business Link. This intelligence will go some way to ensuring that benefits flowing from these organisations are more targeted to meet actual needs.

We will continue to encourage and support innovation and plan to exploit the opportunities that the EU and the current parity with the Euro is affording us. We plan to help West Midlands companies to find business and to collaborate with European companies, educational institutions and government, especially in Germany, Italy, Spain, Benelux and France.

We will be bringing experts over from Europe to provide insight, local market knowledge and advice to help our technology SMEs to gain a better understanding of the European market. We will also be working with UKTI to gain market intelligence and identify specific areas of opportunity such as potential market size, competitors, partners and educational institutions to work with.

The ICT Cluster will be encouraging companies that are already working in Europe to provide best practice case studies and consider entering new overseas markets and we will be supporting companies that want to target EU member states.

We recognise that a lot of companies may have difficulty in accessing EU services due to time and financial constraints. That’s why we will be working with organisations such as EU Connects, the new EU-funded regional resource for the West Midlands who offer advice and support to assist organisations in applying for European funding to deliver trans-national projects.

A final exciting initiative for this newsletter is Leonardo da Vinci. This EU project provides employees with a chance to participate in a subsidised visit to another EU country for training and skills development. In addition, companies wanting to target European countries can also invite EU executives to the UK to share their knowledge.

We hope you have found this article useful. In this year’s newsletters, we will be informing you of the activity we have planned to benefit your company. Should you like us to cover any specific projects in future newsletters or for further information on any of the above projects, please do contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .