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SMEs

Third edition of the Open Innovative PMI award

29 Jul 2019

The third edition of the Open Innovative PMI award is out now. This is the first award exclusively dedicated to innovative SMEs at a national level devised and organised by Bernoni Grant Thornton.

The award is aimed at monitoring, promoting and fostering the best Italian innovation, by giving greater visibility to businesses with a high potential to grow.

All the enterprises wishing to take part can apply from September 2, 2019. Applications are free of charge.

Only businesses recorded within the dedicated register for Innovative SMEs held at the Italian Chamber of Commerce can submit their applications. SMEs undergoing the registration process can also apply, provided that by the date on which the Committee gathers to evaluate the applications, they will meet all the requirements requested by the Law to be considered Innovative.

The Committee, composed of representatives of Italian institutions, academia and the business community, will judge the submitted projects and will select finalists for each of the categories.

What it takes to be an Innovative SMEs:

In order to qualify as an innovative SMEs and register with the Chamber of Commerce, businesses need to have some characteristics required by law:

Besides complying with the typical SMEs parameters (less than 250 employees and yearly turnover not exceeding 50 million Euros), businesses must not be listed on regulated markets, their legal form must be that of a joint stock company, they must be resident in Italy or within the European Union and have their financial statements audited.

Furthermore, they need to have at least two of the following requirements:

  1. at least 3% of the higher between costs and total value of production invested in R&D activities;
  2. total staff including at least 1/5 of PhD, doctoral students or researchers with 3 year experience, or at least 1/3 of people having a Master’s Degree;
  3. be the holder, depository or licensee of industrial property rights relevant to their corporate object or holder of rights on a registered software.

Have a look at the dedicated website www.openinnovativepmi.it for the participation rules or write to direzionepremio@bgt.it.gt.com for further clarifications.

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