This action shall provide specialized consulting services addressing innovation management capacity to SMEs with significant innovation activities. Beneficiaries of the SME instrument will receive support to enhance their innovation management and advice about the coaching process. The most innovative SME within the regions of Asturias, Cantabria, Castilla y León and Galicia will receive and advanced innovation assessment based on the Improve tool and an action plan to fulffill the gaps.

Europe is facing major economic challenges that require an ambitious economic policy for the 21st century. The EU has set out its vision for Europe's social market economy in the Europe 2020 strategy, which aims at confronting our structural weaknesses through progress in three mutually reinforcing priorities : • smart growth, based on knowledge and innovation, • sustainable growth, promoting a more resource efficient, greener and competitive economy, • inclusive growth, fostering a high employment economy delivering economic, social and territorial cohesion. MANUNET III, as a continuation of MANUNET II, is aligned with the European priorities and pretends to create a smart sustainable growth in the European manufacturing sector by coordinating the research and innovation efforts in the field of advanced manufacturing with a special focus in the key areas of new production processes, adaptive manufacturing systems and technologies for the factory of the future. The project will also reinforce the territorial cohesion through an extended collaboration network. The consortium pretends to respond to the actual economic crisis by promoting the transnational research, innovation and entrepreneurship in the industrial sector, especially in the SMEs, which are the backbone of Europe's economy. Through this strategic and integrated approach to innovation in advanced manufacturing, MANUNET III pretends to maximise European, national and regional research and innovation potential.

The VECTOR project aimed at defining a high skilled professional profile and the related curriculum of Destination Manager valid for the tourism sector. The specific objectives of the project were:a) to explore the skills needs in tourism and exchange good practices, knowledge and experience among partners;b) to design an EQF based set of educational standards for destination managers based on project findings, on current European VET developments (with a strong focus on labour market needs;c) to develop an innovative and joined training curriculum related to the Destination Manager profile using the ECVET approach and EQAVET principles to be included in an online course (e-learning platform);d) to organize a pilot phase in Spain and Italy involving 24 trainees to test some of the most crucial and innovative modules included in the DM training curriculum. e) to validate the Destination Manager profile and related training curriculum.The project started its activities by developing an in-depth skills survey, addressing almost 500 stakeholders from all around Europe, in order to gather all the information related to the labour market needs and to analyze the skills and competences that were suitable for the Destination Manager profile. The following step has been the development of a survey, at the European level, related to the existing curriculums in the tourism sector (belonging to the 5th and 6th EQF level) in order to develop a synoptic reading of them as well as to identify evidence of mismatch between market needs and students performance.The DM profile has been designed as a standard: In this Standard, a competence is defined and assessed as a process. Each competence is conceived as the sum of different processes. In this way it was easier to link the profile with the DM curriculum structured, following the ECVET methodology, as a series of unit of learning outcomes. The competences are:1) To analyse the market and the touristic trend, getting the features of the touristic demand and offer.2) To organise the resources (natural/historical/cultural/economical) of the destination, also by achieving the engagement of the local stakeholders.3) To coordinate actors and stakeholders, by creating a network, identifying common goals and negotiating the different needs of the parties involved.4) To promote the territory. The DM takes promotional actions in order to enhance the touristic offer according to the demand of the various customers, increasing their motivation towards the attractiveness of the territory.5) To manage and solve problems, by monitoring profits and expenses, assuring the quality of the service provided and managing time and costs.After the definition of the profile it was possible to structure the related DM curriculum and the learning contents. The curriculum was object of a pilot-testing process, carried-on involving 24 students from all around Europe. that helped the consortium to test effectively the training course not only from the contents point of view, but also analysing the most suitable supply modalities of the course aimed at increasing the possibility for workers to join the DM course.The dissemination of the results has been done at the national and international level, designing 2 work packages dedicated on such topic. The consortium put particular attention in involving key stakeholders at regional/national level during the dissemination events, signing Memorandum of Understanding with such key players during three international conference on Destination Management held in the 3 partners’ countries. These agreements are an evidence of the work developed to assure a future to the project outputs beyond the project lifespan. Furthermore, at the international level, the consortium capitalized the project joining international conferences/events organized by its associated partners as well as cooperating fruitfully with other 3 Erasmus+ project focued on tourism.

The aim of SUSFOOD2 is to foster research and innovation in the field of sustainable food systems through enhanced cooperation and coordination between EU member and associated states. It will thereby contribute to the overall EU objective of building the European Research Area as well as a newly emerging Food Research Area. Major challenges will influence future food chains asking for innovative solutions to - respond to increased demand for food by increasing production sustainably (Food and Nutrition Security) - make optimal use of resources while mitigating impact on the environment - reducing losses and waste - follow a whole food chain approach from production to consumption - improving competitiveness of the European agri-food-business SUSFOOD2 focusses on sustainability in post-harvest food production, thus covering relevant fields from natural sciences to food engineering and social sciences. Building on the achievements of its predecessor in FP7, SUSFOOD2 Cofund will strengthen efforts to support and fund excellent research in the food area by one co-funded call of around 11.4 Mio. €. The consortium also aims at implementing other additional activities in a three-fold approach: i) strengthening networking and knowledge transfer among various stakeholders (i.e. by workshops, stakeholder events etc.) ii) additional funding activities without EU co-fund (preferably linked with other initiatives) iii) implementation and further advancement of the SUSFOOD SRA (developed in FP7) With the outlined approach SUSFOOD2 will contribute to - maximizing impact of transnational cooperation pooling resources (material and intellectual) and implementing best practice - using synergies and reducing overlap by interacting with related (international) initiatives (especially JPIs HDHL and FACCE) - Promoting the outputs of SUSFOOD2 network and funded projects via targeted dissemination thus sharing common vision and creating awareness for the field of food sustainability.

This action shall provide specialized consulting services addressing innovation management capacity to SMEs which possess significant innovation activities. Beneficiaries of the SME instrument will receive support to enhance their nnovation management and advice within the geographicar area of Asturias, Galicia, Cantabria and Castilla y León.