COST Action Participation – Through the eyes of an SME

Dr Antonis TOUMAZISDinner Debate, European Parliament, 29 January 2013

Presentation Overview Who I am The firm / SME COST experience Innovation through EU Projects SME role Constraints Suggestions

Antonis TOUMAZIS Civil Engineer PhD Hydraulics Partner in an Architects’ and

Consulting Engineers’ firm Visiting Lecturer UCY, CUT Vice-President Nicosia - Kyrenia

Branch of CACE

Dion Toumazis & Associates

4 Partners 3 Professional Staff 2 Technical/ Administrative

staff

Fields: Structures Water Transport Energy

Architects and Consulting Engineers

COST Action C22 ‘Urban Flood Management’ 2006-2009

COST Action ES0901 ‘European procedures for flood frequency estimation’ (FloodFreq) 2010-2013

COST Actions

FloodFreq

Reliable estimates of expected extreme flood events

COST: benefits for SMEs

1. Networking:

COST C22 FP7 SMARTeST Project

2. Exchange (STSM):

Firm staff member trained for 2 weeks in another organisation Knowledge applied in actual projects

3. Training School in Cyprus

Benefits for COST from SMEs

1. Transfer of real-life challenge to the research world

2. Adaptation and implementation of research findings to actual challenge

3. Direct contact with industry, small business, home owners

Importance of Research

Applied Research Important to SMEs

Dissemination: Universities Research organisations Practising firms Industry / users

Innovation potential

Flooding is a natural risk

Floods become: More frequent More intense

Living with Floods

Recent Concept - Potential for new products, more jobs, less damage

Innovation potential

Barrier development

Barrier development

CONFERENCES Vs. COST

Conferences: OK…

…While COST: Enhances networking Cooperation Exchange of staff Advancement of Science and

Technology

COST Vs. FP7 Project

Applying/ Joining Networking Learning/ Sharing Knowledge Inspiration/ Perspiration European Integration Administration/ Financial Issues

Challenges – How to overcome them?

1. Main participation: universities and Large Research Organisations

2. Advise COST to increase promotion to SMEs - focus on mutual benefits

Suggestions

More COST Actions on applied research Increase SME participation and lead

Balanced Mix of Proposal Evaluators More Evaluators from SMEs?

What about…

Conclusions

SMEs can offer much, much more: European Innovation Competitiveness Economic Growth

Some variations in rules can help us achieve this…

COST Actions are a huge success.

Dr Antonis TOUMAZIS

Civil Engineer

Partner

Dion. Toumazis & Associates

Cyprus

COST Action ES0901

www.cost-floodfreq.eu

adtoumazis@cytanet.com.cy

Thank you!

www.cost.eu