Information technologies are regarded as key drivers of innovation in SMEs. However, many SMEs, particularly in the production sector, still have difficulties in utilizing these new technologies efficiently in order to foster process and product innovation. This is partly due to the fact that many SMEs dont use IT Service Management and waste many (financial and personal) resources in running basic IT-functions.Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) is a discipline for managing IT systems, centered on the customer's perspective of IT's contribution to the business. Thus, by strengthening the performance of SME's IT departments, ITSM enables process innovation (e.g. eProcurement) and product innovations (e.g. client services) can be promoted. However, many SMEs are not exploating these opportunities to its full potential, due to either lack of the knowledge on existing solutions, or the general feeling of reluctance towards outsourcing of business processes, or lack of trained and informed personnel or lack of transparent and neutral information platforms on ITSM and related training programmes.The planned activities of the project INNOTRAIN IT will be oriented at the implemetation of ITMS that should as a result make more resources in SMEs available as well as enable the implementation and development of process & product innovation. Within the project lifetime the partners will exchange methods, best practices and tools to design and operate ITS successfully. The project relies on cooperation between complementary partners and regions with differing levels and areas of expertise. By transferring know-how, experience and setting up a common training platform, synergies are fostered and a comprehensive approach to ITSM support is realised, which would not be possible on a regional level only. Achievements: Until the 30th September 2012 a lot of effort and steps were done to achieve the general objective of INNOTRAIN IT to facilitate innovation in the regions and to remove barriers for the diffusion of innovation in regional small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The main first step was the execution of research activities. An online survey with about 200 participants was conducted in all participating regions and 24 case studies on the usage of IT Service Management (ITSM) in SMEs were created. One of the main findings of the online survey was that ITSM enables SMEs to save up to 30 % of their IT costs and personal resources which can in turn be invested in the development of process and product innovations. Based on these results a simplified ITSM Guide for SMEs was created. The software ADOIT, that is used to build models of business processes, IT infrastructure and services as well as roles and tasks within a company, was customized and further optimized to support SMEs in the design and implementation of ITSM processes. Innovation scenarios were described based on a fictional company (Charlys Do-It-Yourself Car Service) to show the potential of ITSM for SMEs. Altogether three press releases about the kick-off, the project results of the online survey and the ITSM conference in Debrecen were disseminated in all the participating regions. The website and the training platform were merged to bundle the project results and to present one face to the customer. On 27th October 2011 an international ITSM conference was organized in Debrecen with international experts and about 100 participants. INNOTRAIN IT was widely presented on several regional and international conferences, events and trade fairs. The realization of the transnational training platform has been finished and the platform has been constantly updated and optimized (www.innotrain-it.eu). Two pilot projects have been started in Germany and Poland to demonstrate the innovation development potential of the INNOTRAIN IT environment. The training concept was optimized and extensive digital training content was created (200 PowerPoint Slides, ITSM guide with 115 pages, 16 online training modules with 200 slides) and translated in all partner languages. Several marketing activities (e.g. contacting SMEs from existing databases, direct marketing measures, phone calls, advertisement, publications) started in the regions to promote the planned trainings. The trainer experience group met regularly via Skype and trainings were held in all participating regions. All together 125 participants were trained in 23 seminars.