In this episode I have invited my third Advisory Board member Katarzyna Kowalska into the virtual podcast studio where we dig into the work of innovation clusters and the role they play in the Eastern European context. Katarzyna is President and co-founder of the UNIMOS Alliance which is a Polish independent agro business innovation cluster for specifically SMEs in the agro-bio-economy sector. Further, she is also an Assistant at the International Management and Marketing Institute at the Warsaw School of Economics. She has more than 18 years experience working with the EU R&D funding programmes.

In this episode Katarzyna share how she built the cluster from scratch in framework conditions with little financial support moving onto how the cluster works and supports their members in relation to EU R&D funding and European network. Here she shares with the listeners how she strategically involves the innovation cluster as partners in flagship Horizon proposals with long-term-relationship partners and in this way opens up proposal participation for core SME members of the cluster. In the last part of the episode we discuss the relatively low participation of Eastern European SMEs in EU projects, the possible reasons and how local clusters like Unimos Alliance works to overcome these challenges.

The episode has lots of insights into how innovation clusters work and the added value for especially SMEs to be involved. There are tips, tricks and advice on how to grow your network as a cluster representative and how to practically engage yourself into the networks available and grow your chance of succesfully attract EU R&D funding for your cluster and your members.