"This project has three aims: i) To develop a reference guide of good practices including benchmarks for strengthening the knowledge exchange and transfer between research and SMEs ii) To develop a blueprint paper on new emerging forms of SMEs support for research with the involvement of large corporations in a context where open innovation and public-private partnerships have increasingly gained importance; iii) To engage policy-makers and other stakeholders into a dialogue and ensure the ‘translation’ of the reference guide and the blueprint paper into a roadmap for embedding the more suitable practices and policies. This proposal considers not only the engagement of SMEs into the research process but also enabling SMEs to access developed knowledge and competencies of the research community. In addition to the science-push programmes, it looks into the demand-pull initiatives where the focal SME drives the process. The work puts a strong emphasis on the SMEs of lower absorptive capacity and how to open up their horizons to external research capabilities. Our hypothesis is that if Europe manages to upgrade a significant part of those SMEs, the economic and social benefits will be enormous. The work is deployed through a “funnel” strategy: a) identify the requirements of different types of SMEs b) an Expert Judgment Survey (1000 experts) to map the full range of existing initiatives, c) create key performance indicators to measure their impact, e) investigate in depth the top performing initiatives and f) develop benchmarks for public, private or public-private partnership schemes. The work will be delivered by a multidisciplinary group of academic partners, public and private SME intermediaries with a track record in innovation management and research policy, reinforced by an Advisory Board with top experts. The consortium represents different key regions across Europe and has solid plans for dissemination of results so as to maximise their impact."