WATSON Releases New Survey Questionnaire Aimed at SMEs

An opportunity to influence EU Policy plus the chance to win an Amazon Echo Spot!

The WATSON project is now inviting innovative SMEs to take part in research which examines the effects of Research and Development (R&D) Tax Incentives on SME innovation in Europe and whether R&D tax relief is an effective stimulator of innovation in Europe. It aims to influence policy surrounding R&D tax relief and incentives across Europe.

The results of the project will also allow the development of an integrated ICT platform to perform data analytics on innovation funding, identify funding gaps and enable the provision of advice for stakeholders (public governing bodies, SMEs, private investors, representative bodies, etc.) on the management of innovation and funding schemes. The project team now aims to gather quantitative data from SMEs through a short online survey relating to their firm’s innovation.

A key incentive for taking part in the research is that it gives SMEs a voice enabling them to influence and shape the future direction of R&D tax relief policy across the EU, at European, national, regional and sectoral levels, and to ensure that R&D tax incentive schemes are more streamlined and better targeted to SME needs.

Participants also have the opportunity to be entered into a prize draw to win an Amazon Echo Spot (two up for grabs, worth over €100 each) and, if they wish, they can elect for their organisation to be mentioned in the acknowledgement page of the WATSON final report to be presented to the European Commission to highlight their assistance.

Please register your interest in taking part in the research survey by completing our interest form
WATSON is also keen to attract more stakeholders, so if you would like to be involved in this innovative and exciting project in other ways, please contact the WATSON team via stephen@kapitalise.co.uk

Note to editors:

WATSON is a research project funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 Programme. It aims to develop and demonstrate a framework methodology for studying the impact of R&D tax relief and incentives on SME-led innovation within Europe.The project has a duration of 18 months (January 2018 – June 2019) and a total budget of nearly 1 Million euros. It brings together six partner organisations comprising leading European academic research institutions and innovative SMEs from the domains of fintech, financial services and economics. The consortium is led by the UK innovative SME Kapitalise Ltd with partners from Exodus, Inventya, London School of Economics, Imperial College and Maastricht University.