Design is a key driver in creating new products and services that are attractive to customers, and can make a business stand out among the competition. However, the lack of design management skills is a significant barrier to the wider adoption and integration of design into Europe’s businesses. As stated in the Innovation Union Flagship Initiative, although some European countries are world leaders in design, others lack a robust design infrastructure and design capability. This systemic gap has largely gone unnoticed but must now be tackled. Innovation agencies should tackle this gap by supporting and promoting design driven innovation programmes and services. The overall aim of Design Shots project is to use the experience, the tools, the capacity and the partners’ knowledge in order to address a common innovation support challenge namely to promote the integration of design driven innovation to smes through the creation of tailor made “design driven innovation support programmes” for private sector. The Peer learning activity will serve to learn from the best and to share good and bad practices in design driven innovation support services for smes. The realized Design Options Paper will serve as a “guide” or a “handbook” to other agencies and business support centres to provide similar and/or more focused services/support/ programmes on design driven innovation.

This proposal addresses the growth-oriented business support services that will result in improved competitiveness and access to markets for EU enterprise. These services are as stipulated by the H2020 Adhoc Consultation call issued by the European Commission and will be implemented throughout 2020-2021 by the Network in Malta, in full synergy and complementarity with the other work packages supported by the relevant and concurrent COSME call for the Enterprise Europe Network. The MELIITA 4 proposal is to support the smart growth of the Maltese SMEs by increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of investments in research development and innovation, develop innovative projects with strong European or international potential, and to contribute to a better and more efficient connection of stakeholders and players along the innovation chain. By combining the actions under this H2020 programme with the support being offered under COSME, the Network will be best positioned to offer both business and innovation support along the entire value chain. The MELIITA 4 proposal namely aims to: • Enhance innovation management capacity and identify weaknesses, thus rendering more efficient the full innovation process of Micro and SMEs, irrelevant of benefitting from the EIC Pilot, and to help potentially good ideas effectively reach the market. • Strengthen innovation capacity and to ensure Maltese beneficiaries of the EIC Pilot receive the most appropriate support services based on identified weaknesses in their innovation capacities and so encourage the successful exploitation of their innovation project and to induce sustainable growth beyond the programme period, and • Create a more innovative, competitive business community on a national basis.

The objective behind the MELIITA 3 proposal is to support the smart growth of Maltese SMEs by increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of investments in research, development and innovation and to contribute to a better and more efficient connection of stakeholders and players along the innovation chain. By combining the actions under this Horizon2020 programme with the support being offered under COSME, the Network will be best positioned to offer both business and innovation support along the entire value chain. Services are thus being provided to clients in the wider context of, and in line with, the Europe 2020 strategy. There are two specific objectives which the Malta consortium will aim to achieve by end 2019, namely: ● To ensure that key SME beneficiaries of the Horizon2020 programme are supported efficiently and effectively so that their full potential can be exploited; and ● To ensure that the innovation management capacity of Maltese micro and SME clients is enhanced. In order to achieve the first objective, the consortium will commit to assisting beneficiaries of funding schemes like SME Instrument, Fast Track to Innovation, and Future and Emerging Technologies Open through Key Account Management [KAM] services. Specialised Network personnel will be deployed to facilitate coaching services to such clients following the assessment of coaching needs and identification of suitable coaches. The second main objective will be attained through the deployment of Network services to assess the innovation management capacity of pre-identified clients. The activity under this work package is planned to help SMEs become aware of, and address, the main deficiencies in their innovation management systems since this is perceived as a potential barrier to the creation of economic impact from innovation activities.

"CONTEXT/BACKGROUND OF PROJECT:According to the EU’s Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition (2016), around 45% of EU citizens are digitally illiterate. Thus, giving EU adults a chance of catching up with such skills is indeed very relevant. EC studies forecast that a large majority of jobs will require 21st Century skills including digital competence, communication, problem-solving, team working and emotional intelligence. A lack of relevant digital skills disadvantages people in every part of society and inhibits the full potential of our economies and culture. As digitisation penetrates more aspects of our daily life from tasks at home, to tasks at work, the demand on EU adults to be skilled in digital literacy is daily increasing. At the same time, participation in lifelong learning by adults remains low. This situation implied that such EU adults need to be attracted to engage in lifelong learning to help them acquire digital skills to catch up with the opportunities and needs of a digital economy and society. One means which can offer a host of ways to attract and engage adult learners in a novel way, is that of ‘Virtual & Augmented Reality (VAR)’ technology. However, for this to be achieved, EU Adult trainers required training on the concepts and application of VAR technology. OBJECTIVES OF YOUR PROJECT:The aim of this VITA (Virtual & Augmented Reality Trainers Toolbox to Enable Adults Catch Up With Life Skills) project was precisely concerned with developing a novel digital toolbox by which Adult Trainers can attract, reach out and assist adult learners to catch up with 21st Century Digital life skills. To achieve this aim, the VITA project had set these objectives: * OB1: To understand the training needs of adult learners with respect to 21st Century Digital life skills; * OB2: To develop a Curriculum targeted at engaging adults to learn 21st Century Digital life skills ; * OB3: To develop a set of case-studies exploiting VAR technology to both attract and engage adults to catch up and learn 21st Century digital life skills; * 0B4: To develop an innovative VAR-based toolbox which provides EU Adult Trainers with a set of resources including case-studies, demos and e-learning content to allow them to both attract and engage adult learners in learning 21st Century basic digital skills; * OB5: To evaluate the VAR-based toolbox with a set of Adult Trainers; * OB6: To disseminate & exploit the results of the VITA project and in particular ensure that the VAR training toolbox is openly available to at least 1000 other Adult Trainers across Europe. NUMBER AND PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTSTo address these goals, the VITA project consortium consisted of five European entities ranging from Adult Training Institutions, public HEI, private VAR technology service providers and social enterpirse to collectively develop the VITA training toolbox targeted at engaging adult learners to acquire 21st Century skills and in particular digital literacy. These partners were purposely chosen to ensure a good balance between experts in Adult Education pedagogy (andragogy), second chance training/ learning and curriculum development, digital literacy, Virtual & Augmented Reality technology as well as stakeholders from the social and business sector. RESULTS AND IMPACTS ACHIEVED :Using the ""project cycle management” 4-phase approach, the main reusable result arising from the VITA projects were the VITA Trainers Toolbox (www.mecb.com.mt/tool/vita), consisting of an original Curriculum, e-Learning content on 21st Century basic digital skills, Augmented Reality (AR) & Virtual Reality based case-studies and a free repository. To raise awareness of the project goals and results, the VITA partners disseminated information through a number of means including a web page (www.mecb.com.mt/vita), Facebook Page (www.facebook.com/KA2VITA/) and YouTube Channel (www.youtube.com/channel/UC7FkZsO6y1t7wER9VXbqgHA). In addition, each partner organized a multiplier event in their country while the consortium collectively organized a final conference to reach out to both adult trainers and learners in Romania during the period of the Romania Presidency. Worth also mentioning is that one partner meeting took place in Brussels with a back-to-back public event for which a number of European adult education stakeholders were invited. As a result of this overall dissemination approach, it is expected that the reusable VITA outputs will be exploited by organisations both within and outside the consortium for training both their adult staff and learners. In the long-term as a result of the now freely available VITA Trainers Toolbox, many more EU adult learners will be in a better chance of catching up with 21st Century digital life skills."

The MELIITA proposal will support the smart growth of the Maltese SMEs by increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of investments in research, development and innovation and to contribute to a better and more efficient connection of stakeholders and players along the innovation chain. It namely aims to: • Strengthen innovation capacity and to ensure Maltese beneficiaries of the SME Instrument receive the most appropriate support services throughout Phase 1 / Phase 2 based on identified weaknesses in their innovation capacities and so encourage the successful exploitation of their innovation project and to induce sustainable growth beyond the programme period. • Enhance innovation management capacity, thus rendering more efficient the full innovation process of Micro and SMEs, irrelevant of benefiting from the SME Instrument, and to help potentially good ideas effectively reach the market. • Stimulate an inter-disciplinary approach between cross-cutting technologies and transnational R&D cooperation, and • Create a more vibrant, innovative, competitive business community.