NRW.Europa offers small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as fast growing businesses, support and advice to:

•           open up foreign markets;

•           search for business and project partners (enterprises, higher education institutions, research institutes);

•           participate in partnerships and business trips;

•           participate in European funding programs, especially in the fields of research and innovation;

•           access to financing;

•           improve innovation management;

•           pass on corporate feedback about problems in the domestic markets to the European Commission.

NRW.Europa is the Enterprise Europe Network’s (EEN) partner consortium in North Rhine-Westphalia. It is the world’s largest support network for small and medium-sized enterprises. The network includes about 600 partner organisations in more than 60 countries. The consortium in North Rhine-Westphalia consists of the ZENIT GmbH (Mülheim), NRW.BANK (Düsseldorf and Münster) and NRW.International GmbH (Düsseldorf).

Enterprise Europe Network operates a so-called Sector Group (SG), “Women Entrepreneurship”. All members, i.e. female experts, of this SG are supporting a project called “EMPOWA – enhancing more participation of women entrepreneurs’ activities in Horizon 2020”. The project targets female entrepreneurs in particular with the aim to increase the number of female participants in Horizon 2020 – the EU’s research and development programme. The major element of the project is to provide concrete and detailed information on EU’s SME Instrument in Horizon 2020, trainings and support measures for potential female applicants. The project is a collaboration of Enterprise Europe Network and National Contact Points for Horizon 2020 from six EU member states.

Find more German partner consortiums at www.een-deutschland.de.