Member Article

Be quick to grasp the EU funding opportunity

Entrepreneurs and small business owners with innovative ideas for new products need to take advantage of a new £2.5billion fund that has been set up to help bring them to fruition as Horizon 2020, a seven-year EU project launched this month, could provide a major boost to innovative UK enterprises.

There are 20 million small firms in the EU and almost five million in the UK. This project could mean the difference between being able to bring innovative new ideas to market and not. However, although applications are open for funding until the end of 2020, it is going to be highly competitive and we would urge UK SMEs to explore the potential for their businesses sooner rather than later.

Innovation is going to be the key for sustained economic growth in the UK particularly in the SME sector. Sometimes as a nation we’re a bit too down on ourselves. We know from the Ingenious Britain community that there are many talented people in this country with real vision and we need to provide them with the resources and the environment with which to succeed.

Even moderate success could have a profound impact. This is not only about supporting individual entrepreneurs and supporting the development of innovation in our economy, but if every SME could increase its sales by just £30,000 and add one employee, then we could add around £3 billion to the UK economy and create one million additional jobs. That has to be a prize worth going for.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ingenious Britain .