Implementation of a diagnosis tool to facilitate cooperation between SMEs and local research centres toward Eco-innovation

Faced to an alarming and complex socio-economical and environmental context, more and more companies have to adopt cleaner and more responsible behaviours. These new attitudes can be deployed in different actions into the companies who do not certainly cover all the expertise and thus need to be supported. This paper presents part of the work realized in the frame of a European-Interreg-IVa project entitled ERALAN which objectives are to develop innovation tools and methods for SMEs. More precisely, we implemented a diagnosis tool aimed at increasing SMEs awareness about eco-Innovation and strengthening cooperation between SMEs and territorial research centres. This diagnosis tool offers an actual view of the company's position and a roadmap composed by different trajectories toward eco-innovation with identified partners and advised types of intervention. This work has been developed thanks to a review of existing solutions and the participation of 8 companies located in the Basque region, based on an incremental and iterative process.