Open Innovation is a business paradigm that promotes collaboration between people and organizations outside the company to reduce financial risk and quickly achieve a competitive advantage.
Benefits
A multidisciplinary approach that increases the chance of breakthrough innovation
Increases speed of innovation and reduces time to market
Reduces financial risks and increases returns on investment.
Henry Chesbrough (2006b) defined as “the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation, respectively.”
The definition is linked to main types of open innovation, namely Outside-In (inbound), Inside-Out (outbound) and the combined Coupled type, as well as the associated mechanisms, including pecuniary and non-pecuniary flows.
PITCCH is the European Open Innovation Network where big corporations seeking excellent technologies meet small medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and startups capable of developing ground-breaking solutions.
PITCCH project provides a novel way to create mutually beneficial collaboration in order to resolve any outstanding differences and to find a common ground that will best serve the interests of all parties. Innovation Intermediates will act as pivotal brokers that facilitate the collaborations between SMEs and startups as technology suppliers and Big Corporations as technology seekers and up-takers.
The core vision of the PITCCH project is to initiate a sustainable PITCCH Network. The project is about creating an approach in which this Open Innovation European Network has an added value to the European industry and society at large.
Advanced technologies are crucial for promoting industrial competitiveness of companies. We aim to match SMEs and startups as providers of technological solutions to big corporations and create a network of companies working together and to enable them to promote competitive products in the market.
The main targeted stakeholders of the PITCCH project are SMEs and big corporations. Other key stakeholders of the project are technology centres and intermediary organizations that will support the establishment of fruitful collaborations between SMEs and big corporations, and these entities are defined as innovation intermediaries.
The PITCCH Platform aims to provide a B2B marketplace, consulting services and access to resources for all participants to enable and encourage companies to co-create ground-breaking technological solutions.
The PITCCH Platform – is the platform where the collaboration among Big Corporations, SMEs and Startups is initiated. After the registration process, Big Corporations can propose their challenges and publish them if they are selected. SMEs and Startups can apply to solve the challenge after going through the registration and the two-stages evaluation process.
These actions are moderated by Innovation Intermediaries that work closely with Big Corporations to define the basis for collaboration.
A registration channel will be open for Technology Centres and Innovation Intermediaries. It is expected to open as from April 2021.
Be a Big Corporation.
Headcount in Annual Work: Unit (AWU) of over 250.
Annual turnover over €50 million OR annual balance sheet total over €43 million
A legal entity established and based in one of the EU Member States or an H2020
An associated country as defined in H2020 rules for participation. (Association to Horizon 2020 is governed by Article 7 of the Horizon 2020 Regulation.)
Be a legal entity established in Europe or with European Headquarters.
With the support of the technology centres, we are able to spot and to help the big corporations to find solutions that effectively meet their needs.
Facilitation
We facilitate the scouting of technologies and help you find the most qualified SMEs to speed up your innovation development.
Moderation
We help to moderate the collaboration project and provide a financial contribution (€25k) to the winning SME
Promotion
We manage the dissemination and promotion of your challenge which enables competitive match-making.
You can publish any type of challenge as long as it’s within the project scope. See Rules and Conditions for Big corporations here.
To submit a challenge, first you have to register at the PITCCH Platform, then go to “Challenges” and submit an application form. Once your challenge is approved you will receive a notification and get the possibility to publish the challenge.
As an Open Innovation Network we follow the principles of openness and transparency. It is not possible to publish an anonymous challenge. Before publishing a challenge every company has to register a profile and provide some details about the company.
Be an SME or Startup according to EU definition
Be a legal entity established and based in one of the EU Member States or Associated Countries.
Be a single company, not a consortium.
SME or startup shall be working in one of the following advanced technologies:
Manufacturing
Advanced Materials
Nanotechnology
Micro and Nano-electronics
Photonics
Industrial Biotechnology
Digital technologies
SMEs and startups can benefit from the support of technology centres of the PITCCH Network as well as from €25k in-kind contribution for innovation activities for each collaboration project. PITCCH technology centres offer on average 40 hours of consultancy services per winning SME or Startup.
Process facilitation
Meeting with winning SMEs to assess their needs to carry out the projects.
Negotiation
Template for the cooperation agreement (e.g.advise on IP), template for the Non-Disclosure Agreement template.
Moderation
Support to facilitate and assist parties in reaching amicable agreements.
Technology advise
Assessing technical needs or bottlenecks that might arise and provide consultancy on how to operate (competences check).
Technology positioning
Supporting and advising on strategies for post-project strategies (single/joint exploitation, market segmentation, licensing)
Training
On pitching, IP and exploitation strategies.
The Application Stage 1 consists of the submission of a Form in the Platform with information about the technology solution offered in response to the Challenge and the SME/Startup’s technological and innovation capability. This Stage 1 allows evaluating that SMEs/Startups satisfy a set of minimum requirements and to make a screening of the most promising technology solution offer. The outcome of Stage 1 is the selection of fifteen (15) SMEs/start-ups per Challenge that will be invited to the Application Stage 2. The evaluation of Stage 1 will be carried out by the members of the PITCCH consortium.
The Application Stage 2 consists in two (2) steps: Step 1 is the submission of the full-stage proposal (hereinafter ‘proposal’) per Challenge and Step 2 is the pitch of the technology solution offer (hereinafter ‘pitch’) in front of the BC at the PITCH Day.
It is only possible to submit solutions to challenges that are active and until the submission deadline. To become a solution provider, first you have to register at the PITCCH platform, go to the “Challenges page”, choose the challenge, check out the criteria for participating, fill in the application form and submit it.
The 15 most promising proposals will be chosen per each challenge, if yours is one of them then you will receive an invitation to prepare a more detailed proposal description and to submit it. After that, Big Corporations will choose 10 finalists to present at the Pitch Day.
With PITCCH you can always contact us regarding any details at info@pitcch.eu
Yes, you are able to apply for more than one challenge if you give a priority to one of the solutions in order to avoid double shortlisting. In case a small and medium-sized enterprise submits more than one proposal without priority, all proposals that they have submitted will be automatically excluded from the evaluation process. In any case, the SME cannot be selected to solve more than one Challenge per cut-off.
The selected SME/Start-up has to sign an agreement with the PITCCH consortium, becoming a Third Party and receives financial support of €25,000.00 “in-kind contribution against payment” for implementing the activities related to the project with the BC. If the project budget exceeds €25,000.00, the exceeding costs must be covered by SME/Startup’s own resources.
The eligible costs for the financial support include personnel resources needed to the project implementation; consumables, components and materials for the product/technology development; support services for the product/technology validation. Specifications on the financial support will be detailed in the Agreement between the SME/Startup and the PITCCH Consortium.
No, the applicant shall be a single company, not a consortium.
You can access PRIVACY STATEMENT. DATA PROCESSING OPERATION: ‘PITCCH PLATFORM DATABASE’ here.
Each person has the right to access his or her own personal data and the right to correct any inaccurate or incomplete personal data, as well as to request the removal of his or her personal data, which will be implemented within 10 working days after your specific request will be deemed legitimate. Queries concerning the processing of personal data may be addressed to the following email: info@pitcch.eu
The data processed, including personal data, contains the following information: complete name, place of work, company name, phone number and an e-mail address.
