 Good morning and welcome to Europe is our future and what the EU can do for your business, co-organized by the IIEA and Enterprise Ireland. My name is Joe Lynam, and I am the business editor at News Talk. Before that for 17 or 18 years, I was a correspondent and presenter with the BBC, and I've been all around this lovely content that we share so I can share some of my anecdotes a bit later. When it comes to the subject matter today, European markets represent significant diversification opportunities for Irish companies, as Ireland prepares to mark 50 years since joining the EEC, which is now of course the EU. This webinar will outline hopefully what the EU can do for you. This virtual event, which is the opening seminar of the 2022 Europe is our future series, co-organized by the IIEA and Enterprise Ireland will provide an overview of the benefits of trading and doing business in the EU single market, and we'll discuss the funding opportunities for the EU provides for Irish SMEs. We're delighted to be joined today by a group of distinguished speakers who will offer a wide ranging perspectives on the benefits to Irish business of trading and doing business within the single market. Firstly, the 2022 Europe is our future series will be opened by a keynote address of roughly 15 minutes by Francis Fitzgerald, member of the European Parliament, of course, for the constituency of Dublin, and the former Taunashda Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation. After that, we will hear from Robert Schroeder, who is the Head of External Communications for the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency, the snappily titled EISMEA. Robert will outline the supports that are available for Irish companies. After these initial presentations, we will begin a panel discussion and Q&A for an hour to take us to around 9.30 a.m. Irish time, which will feature in alphabetical order, Daniela and Joni, Research and Grants Officer at Inno Pharma, and Lannigan, the regional director for the Eurozone Central and Eastern Europe at Enterprise Ireland, Sonia Neary, CEO of Wellola, and Margaret Ray, founder of Conry Innovation. You'll be able to join the discussion of course using the Q&A function on Zoom after two years of doing this, you all know how to submit your questions on Zoom. And obviously, if I ask you to speak, don't forget to unmute yourself. Anyway, so submit your questions and I will get those and I will then put them to the panel after we've finished hearing from Robert Schroeder. Everything is on the record, and as they say in Scotland, shy bairns get naysweets, so do submit your questions please. Now without further ado, let me say a few words about Francis Fitzgerald, who is of course MEP for Dublin City and County, Vice President of the EPP Group in the European Parliament. Prior to her election to the European Parliament in 2019, Francis served as a Finnegale Parliamentarian for 20 years and more. She served as a senator and a TD. And her most recently served as Tornester, which is Deputy Prime Minister Robert Schroeder, 2016 to 17, one of only four women to have held this position. Francis Fitzgerald, the floor is yours. Thank you, Joe, and good morning everyone. I'm delighted to be joining you this morning, all the members of the Irish business community, members of the IIEA, and of course, Enterprise Ireland. It was always an absolute pleasure, I have to say, and I really mean it to work with Enterprise Ireland when I was Minister for Business, and I have terrific memories of the trade missions that we went on across Europe and elsewhere with Irish business. And Irish business is so much to offer. And, you know, they really came across very strongly, Joe, on these trade missions and the opportunities also came across, and that's what we're here to talk about this morning. So really delighted to thank you for the invitation. What's on my mind right now, just before I get into the theme that we are to discuss this morning is Ukraine. I've just come from Strasbourg where we spent the week discussing what's going on in Ukraine and of course it's on all of our minds. And it is the context in which we meet. And just to say that yesterday in the Parliament, over 500 members of Parliament voted for an embargo on Russian oil, gas, cold nuclear fuels to stop all Russian transport across the EU, and so on. Many other sanctions that you've heard about all of them and the Council will be deciding today in the next few days, how about which of those sanctions will be put into place immediately. So that's also a context for business and one in the discussions I was part of yesterday where there was a lot of discussion about the impact on economies. Generally, it's felt that the European economy can can manage these issues, but it will be challenging. And I'm very aware that for businesses joining us this morning. That we are dealing with inflationary pressures, we're in a post COVID situation, and we now have the Ukrainian war and all of these impact on business to varying degrees. And there is a role both for the Irish government and the EU in the context of mitigating some of the impacts of those. And we don't know yet whether this will be short or long term. I'm very pessimistic, to be honest with you, discussions around this war continuing for quite a long period. Others hoping that it will be shorter and sharper. Nobody really knows at this point it depends on the resolve of Putin, but as somebody said he's a man on a mission and very psychopathic mission as we can see from all of the sexual violence and what's happening in Ukraine but that is a context that we have to keep in mind, Joe and I think it will emerge in the course of the discussions here this morning. So, I'm very aware that the European Union will have to stand in solidarity, as it did during COVID, and that will be a great help to business. And the team this morning is Europe is our future what the EU can do for your business and I have to say, I never cease to be impressed by what the European Union is and never cease to be anything but very very enthusiastic about the cooperation and the impact that I see. I started off in politics many years ago, working with NGOs at European level, and I always remember the excitement of coming back to Dublin with ideas from Europe, and going there and bringing ideas, and it's the very same for business I think, and so many years later when I was elected in 2019, that excitement stays with me. And I think that's really what Enterprise Ireland and I represent that excitement and opportunity. And the question this morning is how to make it real for business. And what is the opportunity that's there and is there opportunity for small business. Well, I think, let me just recap very briefly the supports that have come from Europe. We have to keep Europe strong competitive. And every year, and it's 50 years since we joined. We've really transformed Ireland, been a member of the European Union. We were a net recipient, as we know with over 40 billion and I've been asked to set a slightly historic team as well. We're now of course a net contributor due to the significant economic growth here despite the challenges we still face. But our contribution really to the EU budget is very small, when you consider the opportunities that the, and the economic benefits of having access to the EU single market, because a thriving Europe is a thriving Ireland. We're one and the same because we're a small open trading economy, and our economic prosperity does depend on our capacity to sell goods and services on the international market. And our membership of the European Union offers us access to 500 million plus people. So, despite the challenges, despite the war in Ukraine, the rapid rise of inflation, COVID-19 recovery and post Brexit market diversification. As we navigate all of these, the opportunities are still there and that's what we're talking about today. Let me recap on COVID-19. Very challenging time for SMEs, as I'm sure everybody on this call knows very well, but people have kept going. Some sectors have been impacted more than others. Some have made gains but not very many. But the business supports that came from the EU across all of the member states during the pandemic helped to support SMEs and business, while also limiting the impact on employment and on jobs. And that has been very important. I was reading a review recently of the EU and they said the EU is very good during a crisis. It has proved that again and again. Now, actually, they've been better during this crisis than the last one because the last one we all know there were some very tough impacts on all our economies. In this one, the EU has raised so much money on the open markets that it has been able to support us during that desperately traumatic period of COVID in a way that I think nobody would have imagined. Small businesses say to me again and again, that's been a huge help. The supports that came through and the flexibility that was there in terms of keeping jobs open, in terms of keeping businesses thriving. So that was because of decisions right across Europe to make sure that we remained competitive and survived actually during that period. One of the points I would make at a European level that we've seen very strongly during COVID. And I think it's going to continue is the value of, if you like, that joint enterprise. We would not have had vaccines to every country in Europe without that central organization that came from the EU. We're talking now in terms of energy supplies in terms of storage and tendering for energy to have a European approach to that. Now we've a way to go to develop that, but that's going to make a difference to the cost of energy in the long run. And as we move into renewables, clearly, we're going to have to have that European approach as well. And the, the RRF, which is this huge amount of money which is now being made available to all member states including Ireland. What's at the core of that is that we are green, and that we are digital, and there are amounts earmarked, which can help SMEs for that green and digital transformation. So there's great opportunity there, I think for our SMEs. Let me say that the single market for goods, services, capital, and people is one of the EU's most valuable assets. The competitive single market offers the framework for growth for job creation and fundamentally raises our standard of living. And I've always felt that creating jobs has to be at the core of Irish government policy because the best way out of poverty, the best way to create wealth to create standard of living is by creating jobs. And we know the vast majority of jobs come from SMEs. It's going to be quite lonely actually being in SME, and I know from my work with Enterprise Ireland how important it is to, for example, build networks, and to have transnational contacts. They can all be facilitated by Enterprise Ireland. I think it's easy to talk about market diversification to actually do it needs support. And SMEs telling me when I went, for example, to the RDS, to the various shows there, they would talk to me about having the time to diversify. They would talk to me about having the staff about the language difficulties, about getting to know those other markets. And these are all challenges, no question. You say diversify into other markets, but just think about going into Sweden, think about going into the Baltic States, think about going into France. And this is a trade mission to France, seeing huge opportunities that have been taken by Irish SME, but it does require that leap of faith, and that support from those who've already done it. And it's been very interesting to hear about, for example, the programs about entering the market, entering the Eurozone, which Enterprise Ireland are running, which really facilitates that entry. 67% of private sector jobs and make up 58% of our GDP. I think SMEs are also keen, I mentioned the green key, I should say. I mentioned the green and digital transformation. SMEs are also key to the transition to a low carbon economy and central to our recovery. And we know that in Ireland SMEs account for over 70% of employment. So this sector is crucial to the future in Ireland, and it's a challenging future. Geopolitically, as I've said, it's challenging, but also from a business point of view. Now, let me ask the question before I finish up. Are Irish SMEs getting the most benefit possible from the EU market? The answer has to be at this point, no. Although we have some very good figures. For example, there has been a doubling. The European markets are now a key element of Enterprise Ireland strategy and Irish exports to the Eurozone have doubled since 2010. So I mean, it's going in the right direction, but I think what we need to do is accelerate that and make sure that far more businesses are taking full advantage of the single market because the statistics show us that they are not at this point. Neither are SMEs making full use of the digital transformation. So those are two big challenges, but two big opportunities, definitely going in the right opportunity, but absolutely needs to accelerate. And that is, I think, what the theme of this morning is it's about developing relationships with Europe, business networks and information portals. They're very important, as I said earlier, it can be very challenging. So I think the different financial initiatives, which I'm not going to go into detail on this morning, but they I've mentioned the recovery and resilient facility. That means that there is a lot of money there to help the roll out into other member states and for our own government to support those transitions. And I think that we can play a huge role in this transition from Ireland because we have a record. I remember being in Galway and going to many of the new small businesses and larger businesses there and seeing the scientific innovation. We have a lot to offer. And I think it's really important that we bring that innovation, because one of the big challenges facing Europe is to keep innovation in Europe. Companies, small businesses, startups can bring a lot of innovation to Europe. It's a challenge. We keep being overtaken by China and the US and innovation is key to keeping those jobs in Europe and developing enterprise. I think one of the areas that businesses worry about is excessive administrative burdens, because that does affect the growth potential of SMEs across the Union. They are a major challenge for about 78% of SMEs administrative burdens. So in the Parliament and elsewhere we have to do everything to reduce those, while at the same time setting the kind of standards that we want to see. I conclude on a point about gender equality, extremely important to keep this in mind, because we have to, if you like, make sure that we tap into the potential of the whole of our population. I think we're very, we're leaders in this in Ireland in many ways when I see what's happening right across Europe. There's huge potential for businesses to do well by being more diversified by placing more emphasis on equality actually, because the evidence seems to be absolutely clear in terms of profits and returns that if you diversify your board, you see an immediate increase in productivity. Very clear figures coming from the IMF on that. So it's very much in businesses' interest to make sure that they have a diversity and make sure that they're opening doors. For example, in Europe now we're bringing in the gender pay transparency directive, which means that businesses will have to say what the wages are and to do comparisons between men and women. So I think I believe it at that, Joe. I hope I've given an overall flavour of the thinking in Europe to re-emphasise again the opportunities that I believe are there for SMEs, for Irish SMEs with the supports from the people who are on the call this morning. I think this can be the decade of real breakthrough for SMEs. I think it has to be. We have to build a stronger Europe and creating jobs within Europe with the help of SMEs is going to be absolutely central to that. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for that. And I would that all politicians spoke to time. That was exactly 15 minutes, Francis. I'm pretty impressed with that actually. You'll also be glad to know, Francis, that our entire panel is our women later on. So I'm the only I'm the token male. Just make it up in numbers. That's good. In the warmest regards to you, Francis, we will see you again soon. We're going to raise a lot of the issues that you've raised, I'm sure, also, but not having the time to diversify into Europe. I thought that was really interesting. But thank you so much. Now, let me bring on Robert Schroeder, who is the head of external communications for the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency, EISMEA. Good morning, Robert. Hello. Good morning, everybody. Thanks so much for the invitation to speak here and I'll share my screen. I hope you will be able then to see the presentation that I've prepared. I think you can see it right. Let me have a look. Yes, I see it. I see nodding and yeah, you've already mentioned it. It's a very snappy title, EISMEA, and I apologize for that. My only point of defense is that that title was chosen before I started as head of external communications. Not sure if I would have managed to change it though. I really appreciate the invitation to speak here this morning. I think I would like to echo what Mr. Gerald has been saying about the opportunities. And that's what I try to focus on here as well. Just very briefly, I will just say what the agency that I work for does. It's what we call an executive agency of the European Commission. And basically what it means is that we implement a number of the programs that have been set up at the EU level. And we try to make sure that they run and that they reach the people that they should reach and that people can make use of it. The agency that I work for is really focused around the programs that we have at the EU level that are made to support researchers, innovators, and small and medium enterprises. So I think the programs that we have really are of great interest to potentially great interest to the people here in the webinar today. My focus for today is really to talk about the opportunities. Mr. Gerald already talked about the general opportunities that of course the single market of the EU presents to SMEs from across the continent and Ireland. And what I will talk about here is what the concrete opportunities are that we can offer you. And I make a distinction here by those opportunities that we have in direct financial support so that you as an SME can apply for. And then there is another whole set of support that is non-financial that is really in trying to help you run your business in a better way. So I'll try to go through these two different categories. To start with the financial support programs, there are several, there are numerous different programs that we have. And what I will talk about here are the ones that I think are most relevant. The big research innovation program that we have is Horizon Europe. It's a huge program, 95 billion euros in financial support over a period of seven years. I have to say, however, that the bulk of this funding is going to research projects, often at what we call a low TRL level, so really quite still far from the market. And most of those projects, they are thematically driven and most of them are open for consortia. There are groups of companies that will apply and often this is a mix of research companies who can bring in some SMEs. But what I think is more relevant for the audience here today is a program that we have started actually very recently, which is called the European Innovation Council. And this is a program that is actually providing financial support to single beneficiaries as we call it. So single companies can apply. It's much closer to the market. It is really about bringing innovation to the market. That's the core business that we have. We also have a significant budget over 10 billion euros over seven years. And what we also have is for those who have projects that they submit, but they cannot get the funding simply because we've run out of the money. We provide what we call a seal of excellence. And this is a certificate that you get, which you can then bring to your local authorities who are in charge of the cohesion funds that we have, the structural funds that are being spent by, so it's European money that is spent by the local authorities. And you can go there with that certificate and say, I have a project that has been approved. It's been deemed to have high quality. There was not enough funding, but then it makes it easier for regional authorities to give direct funding with the EU money, but directly to these companies. I'll talk about the European innovation comes just in one second. I just want to go to two other financial support programs that we have that I think can be relevant. We have a digital Europe program. This is of course, as the name says, all of our digitization. And also there is eligibility for as a means to directly apply to the funding in that program. And another thing I think is really useful and I've put all the links to these things later on in the presentation, which I suppose will be shared with you is access to finance. So this is a portal that you can select in the country where you are and what type of financing you're looking for. And it really gives you step by step all the kinds of advice on how you can actually attract either loans, microfinance guarantees venture capital. So it's a really useful tool that you should really look at very local based giving you advice on how you can get further funding. And I said I just wanted to go into this European innovation because I think it's the most concrete way that we have to support SMEs with direct finance. You will see here I will only focus on what we call the accelerator the program has also parts for more research oriented activities and then a transition. But I think for this audience again the accelerator is the most relevant because it's really to support companies that are very close to the market that are in innovation. And that's what to get some financial support. So the, I would say that the main element here is that we for the first time we can combine grants up to two and a half million euros with venture capital with equity funding. And it's really an opportunity to submit proposals for your company to grow and to get both a grant you can also ask only for a grant but if you are interested in that you can also apply for equity funding to to further grow your company and of course to attract also investors. It's a very successful program. And it's a very new program and it's really helping companies to grow. We're focused on deep tech. And we have certain costs that are more challenge based for example in in green tech or in healthcare, but we also have what we call an open part, which receives about half of the 1.16 billion euros that we have for this year for any open parts as long as it's in technology and innovation. Mr Chair also talked about the decreasing the administer burden and this is really something that we've been trying very hard for this program to do. We have two stages so you can submit a very simplified proposal, you will get a response in four weeks, whether it's good or not, whether it has the potential to get funding. You can get the response so you can you can submit your proposals at any time of the year. Within four weeks you get a response and then we have several what we call cut updates throughout the year for the full applications, which will then get a more deep analysis and the funding decision will be based on that. We actually just have one and the next one is in June and then another one in October. And so this is real opportunities for for the money that often SMEs are looking for to to grow into particularly to reach the market. I would now just go into the non financial support programs that we have still linked to this European Innovation Council which I just talked about before. The novelty there is that we also for those companies that we do fund sort of for the beneficiaries of our program, we do not just stop with providing them the money we actually bring a whole range of other support, which we call business acceleration services. If you are beneficiary, you get the money and a full support program, which is access to mentoring it is expertise that we can bring trainings we bring you to to trade fairs in Europe and beyond. There's a community of peers for exchanges so that there's a real support program around that. We also have another program which is called the European Innovation Ecosystems and there we have a lot of scale of initiatives again for companies to help them to match them for example with large corporates and to start working together with them to look into finance opportunities, and also here and it's also something Mr. Gerald already referred to, we have a specific program to help female entrepreneurs. It's called the Women Tech U program where we provide small additional grants but we also give the opportunities there for mentoring and trainings for these female entrepreneurs to to succeed with their companies in the market. Another program I want to talk about because this is really the program that has been dedicated to support SMEs is within the single market program. This is a program that is set up by the department that is dealing with the internal market with entrepreneurs with SMEs and this is really the broad program is really to support people doing business across the single market. That's the basic rationale of this program. So it's really there to help smoothen the functioning of the single market. And some of the more concrete elements that are relevant and where there's a lot of support for SMEs is what we call the SME pillar. So this is really there to support SMEs in creating more competitiveness their innovation capacities, but it creates a lot of support concrete support that you can have access to in, for example, intellectual property rights, knowing what is possible on standardization. It is a program that is running the drive for further standardization to ease the business, but it also has to help us to to answer all the questions that you may have about what standards are applicable and and what is still to be done. And also, discussions about what's still the barriers to to the business are in helping you remove that because very often and it's another initiative that we have started, for example, is called innovation deals. There are a lot of barriers with bringing your innovations to the market. And often these are legal barriers. In many of the cases, this is actually a perception that there's a perceived barrier because it's complex and everybody knows it is complex. And often it's just helping and talking about that with the experts that you can actually realize that the real barrier may actually be more of a perception than a real barrier and you can find ways dealing with that if you know what the situation is and where the flexibility in the systems. Some of the elements that are being offered here is just guiding you in your business with, for example, tax issues, usually complex issues and there are people that can just help you to explain the rules and do that. So it's a lot of things are just available there. Two other things I wanted to talk about before finalizing is the Enterprise Europe Network. This is an enormously helpful network for companies to grow internationally. And that means within the internal market but also outside the internal market. It can help companies just to get advice on how to innovate themselves become a business model innovation. And there's a lot of discussion about, for example, the circular economy but what does it mean for your business model if you want to move into a circular economy because it's a different type of doing business than more traditional businesses. Help you to go abroad. There's again trade fairs. There are centers for support in if you want to do business in Japan or in China. So there are a lot of these kinds of support systems there that can help you. The EEN has been present in Ireland over the past years and we expect that soon again this will be available in Ireland. And it's really something I would suggest to contact and to talk about because there's such an enormous wealth of information there and context that I would make use of. The last thing, it's a small program that we started recently which is called Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs and this really just gives the opportunity for young entrepreneurs to do a traineeship if you will to go abroad to go to other companies, see how they do business, see how they are, for example, doing business throughout the single market just to learn and to take that knowledge back into your own business. I will just finalize with a couple of recommendations. If you are looking for funding, it is very competitive, but it and it is excellence based. So it's really the whole idea of the funding programs that we have is that we fund the best. And what that means, of course, is that there is strong competition in the first place because it's open to all of Europe. And there are a lot of people that are applying for that and that have good ideas. Now what does it mean, there are enormous opportunities, there is a very significant budget. If you want to increase your chances of success there, there are just a few very basic steps. Look very carefully at the requirements. Of course, this is the first thing I mean these are very obvious things that I say but I think it's important to remind. Look very carefully at what the requirements are what the criteria are before you submit something, but also prepare well and that's because it can take time. So we are making some steps that we do these first proposals on a very short thing where it's just really about the idea but if you go for the full proposals do it well take your time because it will usually increase your, your chances of success. If you take the time and to prepare well. And it's also a word of caution because there are a lot of companies out there that are willing to support you in that. So be careful about who you select to work with. See if they have a track record of success there because they're also a lot of company who are just their business model is to make use of all these companies who have very little knowledge and they would try to help you in that but maybe not always with the right expertise in the right experience. So make use of them by all means, but look at who they are and what the track record is. Another point I want to say just to to finish is don't we realize that people always see the EU as something very distant of course it is. It is very abstract often and is distant but never hesitate to contact people that work there. All the details are online and generally people working in the European Commission or in the agencies are very, very open to help and to to help people further. So never hesitate never think that it is something that is far away just pick up the phone write an email and people are often really, really open to help you and if they cannot help themselves to refer you to other people so make use of these opportunities because they really are there. As a last slide here, again, I suppose the sites will be shared with with all of you. I've just listed a whole number of links, look through them, some of them are linked are the same page but more detailed pages but there really is a wealth information available on the internet on the internet so gross through them and as I said contact the people if you want. I won't go through it now but you will see inside the sites. I put two examples concrete examples of companies who have been held through the different programs. So just for you to get a better idea on the type of support concrete support companies have received in real circumstances. Joe, I will leave it at that. I think I have slightly overrun my time. But of course, yes, you will be charged what they call in the Netherlands a boost skills for going two minutes over. That's what you get when you park on the wrong side of the road in the Netherlands, especially in Amsterdam, Robert, as you know. Thank you so much. That was fantastic. Now, quick question. Those slides. They're very useful. Are you sharing them Robert or could you share them with with the great. That would be great. And we could then give them out and put them on the website. I'm guessing. I'm looking at and from EI and I'm looking at Dara from the IEA to we can we can we can get those out. And I appreciate you doing that, Robert, because that last website showed a whole plethora of websites. And it goes to the question that everyone asked and he said, well, you know, is there a one stop shop that for the EU so if you are an SME, where do you go or who do you call when you want to call Europe it's the old one. So there's a plethora of places you can start. I was particularly impressed with the fact that you and you there's a promise to get a response. Did you say within 40 days? I can't remember was that that you get four weeks. Yeah, that's not bad. You know, good luck at getting a response from Dublin Corporation within four weeks on anything to do with parking or something like that. So thank you so much for letting us know that you will get that's not the formal approval, but you will get a response, I presume. Is that right, Robert? Right. Now, go ahead. No, I just to clarify needs so you get a response. Is there any potential in this, if yes, then you can go to the next stage with a full proposal so it just saves you time in not having to go through a full proposal at first stage which takes a lot of time and energy to to prepare and then get a no. It gives you the answer in four weeks to say there is real potential in here go ahead and prepare your full proposal, which will then examine and then of course there's still the chance that you will not get the funding but it will stop you from doing an enormous amount of work with very little certainty. Yes, and the other thing for anyone listening in there is attention to detail Robert attention to detail don't just slop something on paper. Do your research, make sure you don't have any embarrassing spelling mistakes and look at the criteria because one thing is for sure when it comes to European Union. When they write a criteria down they mean those criteria that don't mean oh well if you have one or two of them you should be okay. So try to, you know, stick to the, you know, high standards that we that every SME needs and every SME probably will have on that side. Robert, can you stay with us and listen into our panel discussion in case we need to come back to you. Sure. Wonderful thank you so much now before we go to our panel discussion just a quick reminder to all the shy children out there and not getting any sweets. Please submit your questions. Use the bottom right of your zoom function to submit your questions. We have a panel of SMEs who have all availed of European funding in some way shape or form, and whose knowledge you should want to tap into. And of course we have Robert and we still have the wonderful Francis Fitzgerald who is listening in as well. Thank you so much for staying on Francis I know you're a busy lady we already heard you this morning on news talk radio great network by the way everyone should hope you subscribe to business breakfast with yours truly. Anyway submit your questions now and I'm going to go through our panel all women in alphabetical order I'm going to say a few words about them and then they're going to say a few words about themselves and how they found applying for EU support, whether that was financial or just emotional support. So, I'd like to say bonjour no to Daniela and johnny who is a senior research fellow and principal and investigator with 10 years of experience in research and development research commercialization and project management. She has a diverse scientific background that ranges from physical chemistry to electronics to biology with the research focus on diagnostic devices design and development. There's a little bit of alliteration there. She has worked in cutting edge research groups in the field of bio electronics adaptive materials. I don't know these things either, and sensors contributing to a number of European Union funded research projects on a collaborative project collaborative project with the team in the United States of America bonjour not Daniela how did you get on when it came to getting EU support. Hi everybody, and thanks for this introduction. Well, I, I have always been connected with you and you support you have, you have introduced me as a principal investigator I have, I have 10 years of experience in academia and and you know as you. You all know, and you really, in order to develop so when we are in academia, the beauty of being there, but the beauty in general of the work, at least that I do in technology and in science is to develop ideas is to have ideas and trying to develop them and to, and to realize and developing to product. And so, in order to do that, you always need to get funding, and the best way I think to do that is looking at the wide range of opportunities that are available there from you. I also got funded at national level so I have to say, even, you know, within Ireland, there are other opportunities, but do you. There's so many diverse scheme and programs at different stage of your journey across, across your career. And now, as you said I spent eight years in academia but now I you know I am a research and grant officer in Inno Farma, which is an SME is an Irish SME and even before I joined at the company they've always been. They always bailed of EU funding, so at national level but also European level, and that I think also is the key and how the way the way that they expanded so and the growth so so quickly in their business. So I'd say that's, that's a bit of my point of view on new funding and how they are absolutely crucial in our, you know, in our career for business. Well, we will come back to you Daniela thank you so much for that. And I'm going to bring in now and land again. She joined enterprise Ireland in 2003 and has held a number of management positions, including director of the Tokyo office and head of the Brexit unit so that was a quiet aspect. And she has been a driver of change within the organization and the key architect of enterprise Ireland's proprietary client engagement model. A mechanical engineer by training and spent 18 years in the private sector before joining enterprise Ireland and I will bring in the other entrepreneurs a little in a little bit moment but from your perspective from enterprise Ireland's perspective. What sort of supports do you think that SME should think about immediately when they're thinking about getting into the eurozone market. Thanks Joe. And, as you said I'm the regional director for Europe and enterprise Ireland, and I think that all of our audience know that enterprise Ireland is responsible for the development of our shown business. In particular focus on exports, we see this as a route to growth. So my role and my responsibility is the growth of our clients exports into the EU, and so basically making Europe our future. And I'm based in Amsterdam and responsible for 11 offices across nine countries, and those offices are populated with market advisors. Market advisors work one to one with our client companies. And that's probably the key support that we provide for our clients in terms of helping them to enter and win business in the European markets. But before clients get to a point where our market advisors can help them it's really important, and that a company will do some work themselves. And so market research for example we have a state of the art and market research facility, and which is now all online. And we also have a number of funding supports which I will go into now but, but a number of funding supports that will have companies on their way. And as Francis mentioned earlier we have what we call the enter the eurozone program, which works with companies bringing them through a process in a Berlin business school where they develop a market entry plan. And this is on the European supports, and I think that's something that we would really like to help our clients to access also so Robert talked about them earlier today. And if companies are struggling to see which supports might suit them, we are very happy in our offices across Europe to talk to companies and to help them to identify what supports might help them to accelerate their entry into the market. Brilliant. I'll come back to you obviously and thank you so much for that. And now let's move on to Sonya neary with over 17 years experience working as a physiotherapist in Irish health care she's now the CEO and co founder of well over is that well over or well over. It's well over yeah perfect. Thank you. Good morning Sonya and you're a big believer in leveraging digital technology to support self management care models tell us more. Absolutely yeah and thank you I'm delighted to be here today and absolutely yeah so our company is a double based digital health software firm and I you know our vision is that only the sickest of the sick are cared for in a hospital setting. We don't feel it's the right setting for many patients and my co founders a medic and both of us have worked with a cold face. And so our platform really is designed to support care providers to care for their patients in the community to offer preventative and community based care. And, and so yeah we've been very fortunate. Both from the support that we've gotten from Enterprise Ireland and multiple supports we've gotten from the EU so I'm delighted to be here today to to impart some of that experience to the audience thank you. Thank you very much Sonya and final last but definitely not least Margaret Ray is the founder of Conry innovation, an early stage startup developing technology to manage and control sea lice in and hopefully I get this right some salmonid aqua culture. So right. You're on mute margaret you might want to unmute yourself. Yeah, that's right Joe salmon aqua culture basically salmon and trout. So yeah Conry innovation is helping salmon farmers produce happier healthier and heavier fish at sea, and we're using machine learning and artificial technology to help that. So, I'm a very early stage company and we're delighted to win the women tech EU award they're recently announced in in March. And it's as Francis was saying earlier, the EU and the European Commission are really putting a lot of supports in place for boosting gender diversity and supports for that so Conry innovation was one of the 50 companies awarded this women tech EU award. So we're delighted with that. For those listening for other women listening. It's helping to support women led companies. And so those in the C suite, basically can apply. And they get 75,000 euros worth of support. And in addition to that as Robert shorter mentioned earlier, the business acceleration services also offer support in terms of mentoring and coaching. And that's as as Francis said earlier, you know, the that whole language side of things and getting involved in Europe and the European market that's there. So I'm looking forward to getting that mentoring and experience with a wider network beyond Ireland. Wonderful Margaret. Thank you stay with us Margaret I'm going to go back to Robert Robert could you unmute yourself and answer this question that we've got in from Andy McGuire from the technological University of Dublin. Robert does Robert have a breakdown of micro business support, i.e. up to 10 people against non micro SMEs up to 250 people and 250 staff as the service sector for micro SMEs tends to be different to those required by quite large Irish standards SMEs. Robert, do you have a breakdown of micro versus kind of normal size SMEs. I'm afraid I do not. I, to be honest, I'm not sure if I completely understand the question in. If it if it's referring to how many companies we support. Tiny companies. Yeah, I think it's asking. Do you support tiny companies i.e. less than 10 staff. I do, but I do not have a breakdown of how much support either is getting but in particular, for example, the European Innovation Council, which I've talked about before, this is really supporting startups so micro SMEs with with two, five people is what really there for as much as to the larger, I would say the innovation council is really for there for startups, and less so for the larger companies. Okay, well thank you so much Robert and I literally I just threw that at you I didn't expect you to have the exact stats to hand, but I wanted to make sure you were still awake and you'd had your coffee and all that stuff so thank you very much for that. Let's go back and can I come to you and for Enterprise Ireland. We saw there that Irish companies are a bit nervous about going into a non English speaking environment. Irish people don't tend to speak foreign languages fluently but you know they may need to is not right. There's no English speaking country in the EU so they all have their own language so realistically if you want to do business with somebody you need to speak the language of your customer. And so it is important to address language. Now there are countries where language is less of a problem than others for example where I live here in the Netherlands, but having said that it's still very important that you do actually, you are able to operate in the language of the country. And there are lots of solutions to that. You know, for example, you can recruit somebody who speaks a language we have a grad start program which allows companies, and we actually covered 70% of the cost of the salary of that person for two years. If they speak a language that is relevant to your business. So you know there are supports like that that can help when you're recruiting a sales and marketing person recruit somebody who speaks a language relevant to your business. And you know you can use interpreters and there are services out there and one of the things that a lot of our companies do is they find a partner in market who they work with who obviously has the language. And so that overcomes it but it does need to be addressed it is terribly important to get the language piece right and we have a number of companies who do win business through English I always say to them, you could win 10 times more business if you have a language. So, so I understand this and do they kind of rock up in Germany and send emails in English to potential German customers etc, and expect a response in English. Yeah, and a lot of the time they do get responses, you know, Germany is a country where actually English is spoken in business quite quite frequently. But my point is that, you know, they get a better response and maybe a faster response and more responses, if they were able to deal with the language. I don't want to put companies often say you can't do business if you don't have a German speaker in your company what I'm saying is we will talk to you and help you to address that, but you can get started straight away and it is possible to do a certain amount of business through English. Let's go back to some of our entrepreneurs. Sonya, where are you selling elsewhere in the Eurozone. So we're currently Ireland, UK, Italy, and we're looking at expanding into Germany, and we've had really fantastic supports from an entity called the European Institute of Technology and Innovation. They have an industry supports, you know, we're in healthcare but they do support other industries. And for example with them, we've availed of the digital health validator bootcamp I did that in Trinity. And quite like what I was saying there, it opened up funding for us but also they brought us all around Europe, and we met fantastic partners, living labs, academic partners, potential customers, and it kind of gives you the confidence to put a foot on the ground in another entity in another country in another market, shake hands with the people, and now that we're allowed, and find partners that can help you distribute your product there. We also availed of the Mentor and Coaching Network that they have. That's given us a mentor in Germany, Dr Karl Kwan, who again has supported us with market analysis, finding potential distributors and partners in Germany. We've learned very much, you know, people buy from local people that they know, and that can really help to kind of learn that. And we work with Swalla Ventures in Barcelona, who again are a Spanish entity, supporting our marketing campaign. So, you know, little things that have been, you know, that we've learned is have your website available in the local language, make your flyers and your marketing material available in the local language. I often get a comment of, God, this is great, you're an Irish company but I'm seeing the site in German, you know. Just little simple things like that. But yeah, we've gotten great support from EIT. We're also working towards the EI, have a market discovery fund, again, to support you to gain access and to gain funding and support into a new market. And we are applying for, Robert mentioned there, the European Innovation Council, the accelerator, which at the moment is open and we're in the process of applying there. So, we've been very lucky with a number of really fantastic supports and I'm happy to talk further on that. Well, let me follow up Sonia and say, well, you said you're selling your services, Wallola services in Italy. What if someone messaged you in Italiano? So again, it's about having a local partner on the ground there that can speak the language that can support, that can offer technical support, etc. And that's been a learning curve, you know, that definitely isn't something that we can manage from the Dublin office with English and Irish speakers. So, and as it's interesting, we have team members now. So we had interns, for example, that came to us from Germany, they went back to Germany and they now are working for us from Germany. So there is kind of a nice way sometimes to trial people. I mean, I think from a hiring perspective, the market operation is wide open and we can now hire people in Spain and Portugal and Germany and Italy with relative ease and engage them in our team as easily as you can use it beside us in the office and in the GC in Dublin. So yeah, absolutely. It's really important that you have that local presence. Well, let me bring in Daniela and Johnny from, you know, Pharma, if you could unmute yourself, Daniela. You speak fluent English, obviously Italian, but what if you want to sell some research project or some of your services in Poland, for example, what would you do? What have you done? Well, I think over the years, I think one of the reasons why in Pharma, like we sell the products all over Europe, but not only Europe. Yeah, you mentioned Poland, but there's also we have clients in Japan, for example. How's your Japanese, Daniela? Unfortunately, I'm afraid. But I mean, yeah, the language is one main problem, but I think connecting with people and, you know, like, as you said, I speak English fluent and English is a way, is a bridge, you know, to connecting to people. And then also there are, as Sonya also mentioned, a way to engage in and engage with people that are maybe not Japanese, but that there's a there's a branch of the Japanese industry company in Europe that can speak the language in Poland. Well, it might be a bit more challenging, but there's always fine is always the way to find a local support there that would speak the language and so they can, we can reach out to them. But I think going through the European funding, it puts you in, I think the main reason because I think that's that's why, you know, we're we're here talking about our experience of getting the funding from you. And it puts you in a network of people and connections and company between companies and and OTOs and and within this network, there would be a way to find a client or or a partner in in different countries in Europe that would in some way interact with you and speak to you and and and connect to you. So I think that the main advantage, and I think the low hanging fruit of being in the, in the EU is, is actually the visibility. So bring yourself visible, the company and your product and your skills visible to the other, you know, European country and the people within Europe, but also connect with other people. I think that's the main. I mean, I loved what Francis said this morning about the excitement of, you know, going to Brussels and talking to other people in Europe and then going back to to where you come from to Dublin, or anywhere with the excitement of the ideas that that you have discussed with with other people. And, and that's exactly what would be the beauty of of availing and and putting yourself out there and availing of your funding and even reaching out to other countries like Poland that probably is not an immediate person that you would do, but like that that the excitement of talking to them on getting new perspective of what could be your your product and the way you know you're going forward in your in your development, your product within your company. I think that's the beauty of it. And I don't know if that makes sense. Nope, and that's the question very well. And Grazia and Daniela can I go back to Robert please if you could unmute I have a question for you it's a slightly easier one Robert don't worry. You can put down that bottle of Mogadon and question from James cat for Robert from the European Innovation Council. And can you ask Robert where he would apply where you would apply or one would apply for the grant of up to 15 million euros in equity support because I thought the equity support that you mentioned Robert was quite interesting. I also wanted who takes the equity stake because I'm guessing the European Union in the Berlin mall doesn't take a stake in SMEs when they're starting up. So the, if you look at the, when you will receive the slides there's a link to the European Innovation Council and there's a direct link there to how you can apply for the funding. And so there for this, if you apply for the funding of the accelerator there during the application you can indicate whether you are going to apply for a grant of up to two and a half million euros. And if you wish so for equity investment up to 15 million euros actually we're starting with a with a pilot now to go even beyond 15 million euros. This is really up to the, the candidates to indicate what they're interested in and so we have these two options either a grant of up to so you don't have to go to the maximum, and then the equity part up to 15 million. The decisions are being taken by we have an DIC fund as we call it, which, and that has an investment committee that is actually taking the investment decision based on, of course, the project proposal, etc. The part that perhaps is interesting also to mention there it's really a new approach is that we are traditionally have always been doing our evaluations of the applications, just say on paper, and we get the paper applications and people different from the evaluators look at that what we've introduced now is that we for the accelerator actually have a real interview. So we have innovators so it's a it's a panel of innovators investors or relevant people who actually will discuss with the applicants to see not only the application and the proposal is good and has this high potential, but also to see more who is behind it. And that of course is critical for the success as well as I mentioned before sometimes you have consultants who actually prepare proposals. But the people who have to do it may not be sometimes easier to write a good proposal than actually to implement the project. So, this is really a very interesting thing that we've started doing by having these these live interviews to get to know the people that are behind it also gives us come the conference to fund and to give these grants. And it is us who is taking a stake in these companies through the through the fund and the European investment fund. Thank you very much, Robert. I will come to Anne Lannigan from Enterprise Ireland in a moment, just a quick. I think it's more of a compliment than anything else for Sonya and it's from potential competitor Sonya so watch this one. Sheila McNeil who is with triple therapy in Sligo just wondering whether there is a role for physiotherapists in the European model quote great to see you here. Sonya. That's very kind. Now let me go to Anne Lannigan from Enterprise Ireland. Do you think the European Union is any good at selling itself, i.e. getting the message out, blowing its own trumpet, dare I say. Well, are you asking me to criticize the European Union. I'm asking you to be clear and open with would be SMEs who may find the alphabet soup of organizations, agencies, directorates, whatever you want to call it, very daunting. And that's before the language and culture difference committed play. And I do think there is enormous amount of support to the EU is a fantastic. I mean I'm not even sure what we call it but you know we've been in it 50 years now it has made an enormous difference to Ireland it has made an enormous difference to Europe. And, but I totally understand how people might find it daunting. I find it daunting. I think the supports that are available are complex. And there are an awful lot of them and so it is very difficult to identify which are the supports that might work for you. I think our three panelists today can give great insights into how they identify the supports and how useful they found those supports. So, it is a matter of I guess a little bit of homework and maybe as Irish people we don't really like to have to do that, but there is an element of work involved in identifying what helps you. As I said earlier, our market advisors in our offices across Europe are very happy to talk to companies and help them to identify which are the right supports for them. And remember there are supports coming from Enterprise Ireland there are supports coming from the EU, and it's a mix of those that will be best for most companies. But I don't believe that Irish companies are availing of, you know, anywhere close to what they could avail of within the EU and that's why we're having this webinar today to try and highlight the fact that these companies are there, they're there for you. And, and, you know, it's something that we would certainly encourage companies to come to us to talk about and to access directly. I did see a question there as well about if you're a Leo client are these EU supports available to you. Yes they are. And, and so there is for those of us who don't know what a Leo client and I presume it's nothing to do with Leo What is a Leo client. Yeah, we have a lot of Leo is now our CEO is also Leo and Leo is local enterprise office and they support businesses that employ less than 10 people. And, and those companies also need to be looking at exporting and I know that there's a number of them in the audience today. And remember also that those Leo clients and can get access to our market research center if they talk to their account manager in their Leo, they will be able to get access to our market research center which could be invaluable for them also. Okay, let's bring in Margaret bring back in Margaret please. Margaret Ray. Margaret, your own story is is you're you're selling a service though on on on how to deal with aquaculture. And are you also involved in the physical manufacturer of these salmon and this this these fish. And do you know all the difference that could be the different some different supports you could get if you are physically moving products to continental Europe. Hey, well, first off, I'm not actually in salmon aquaculture myself I'm not a salmon producer myself. But I'm an early stage startup. And what we're developing is is a is an underwater drone, coupled with machine learning and artificial intelligence to help salmon producers produce healthier fish basically at the end of the day. And on the new frontiers program that's enterprise Ireland's National Entrepreneurship Programme at Galway Mayo Institute of Technology Innovation Hub, and we get mentorship there on our markets as well. So, so through this program I'm getting some mentorship in terms of exports and how to export to Europe, but I'm definitely looking up the European Enterprise Network when I when I get back. It's kind of like it's kind of like a giant WhatsApp group isn't it Robert. Absolutely, I'm definitely trying to get into that. I think it's really necessary as as Anne said earlier to do that homework. For instance, I thought I couldn't apply to this women tech EU I thought it was far too early. I thought country innovation was too early a stage to do it, but I did my homework and as Robert said there I actually did shoot off an email to as Mia. To find out if I was, you know, if the company itself was eligible to apply. And it came back. Yes, I was eligible to apply so then I did within four weeks. Did you get a reply. Oh, actually, sooner than that. Within within about a week of it. And I would advise everybody here to subscribe to the newsletters, you know, and to the programs do that because you get to hear of the calls that are coming out. And you get to hear of other people who have been successful. And as we like to do in Ireland we like to network actually with other Irish companies as well that have been successful and through that network. You know, you begin to get a feel for what's out there. So I would encourage everybody do the homework and set your company up on the European portal that European participant portal early. So it's all set up. And then you can apply when your call comes out and that type of you call that specific for you. I'm really, really happy that we were selected there are 391 applications and 50 companies at the end of the day were awarded it. So I'm a prime example of somebody who really at the beginning didn't think she was eligible. You know, and, you know, slowly but surely got to find out that I was eligible and then you do have to put in a lot of effort. And as Robert said earlier, prepare well. You know, have a look at the criteria and have a look at what you need to put up important because sometimes, you know, it's not just the proposal, but there are other bits of pieces of proofs for various different things that you need to do. And if you don't do that, no matter how good your proposal is, it won't get through. So, you know, that that preparation side, it's vitally important. Really, you know, I'm such an early stage company were set up last year. And 75,000 will make a huge difference to my company. And was that a grant or is that equity? It's a grant. You don't have to pay that back mark. No, no, I don't. It's fantastic. So when you're pretending to be in the West of Ireland, you're actually in the Bahamas. Isn't that right? No, I'm actually in the West of Ireland. But this is a photograph of Valencia Island actually. County Kerry. Lovely. I was there a few years ago. It's really nice. But I suppose the issue that you are raising is people have a perception. And this is for and again, I suppose, people have a perception that Europe and Robert mentioned this that Europe and the European Union is distant. That it's, it's too far away culturally, physically, whatever it is. And they won't consider my application anyway. And there's a psychological barrier, as well as all the alphabet soup that we spoke about in terms of agencies, but there's a psychological barrier that people need to get over. I've already talked about this, Anne, but I just want to stress it again that, you know, there are emails, there are phones, you can call people in Ireland, speaking with Irish accents who can break that barrier down. Absolutely. And I think also your point about psychological barrier is very well made. I saw a question there in around, you know, what is the biggest barrier. Absolutely. We ourselves are the biggest barrier. It's a mindset. We need to change our mindset. We are Europeans, we have this enormous market sitting on our doorstep with no barriers to entry in terms of customs tariffs and borders. You know, if you're looking at the Eurozone, there isn't even a currency challenge. So, you know, that's the opportunity. In addition to that, we have all of these supports that Margaret spoke so well about there, Daniela and Sonja, all of these supports that are sitting there waiting for us to avail of them. So if there is a barrier, it's in our heads. Yeah. Can I stick with you and don't worry, I'll come back to the other participants shortly. I wonder whether Brexit might actually end up being a blessing in disguise, in that it has forced many small companies in Ireland to wean themselves off the dependency of selling to Britain and English-speaking markets. Well, as you mentioned earlier, I was head of our Brexit unit and so Brexit is one of my favourite topics. Super quiet. It's one of the most exciting jobs I ever had. I think the first thing I'd say is we have a lot of business in the UK. It's an important market for us. We don't want to lose it. However, there is more opportunity. Just if you just base it simply on the sizes of the market, there is more opportunity in Europe. But there is also more opportunity in Europe because we don't have those barriers. We've always had a barrier with the UK in terms of currency since we joined the euro. And that is a significant, maybe people don't see it as a barrier, but actually what it is is it's an extra cost to your business. It's a variable change in that cost, yeah. There's the uncertainty about it, but it actually costs to have to change currency back and forth all the time. So, you know, there are enormous advantages. The UK is a market, it will always be a market for us and it's a strong market for us, but there are enormous advantages in looking further afield. And by the way, we don't have to go very far. And France is very, very happy to continuously remind us that they are now our closest neighbour in the EU. So there's a French market literally sitting on our doorstep and all of the other markets around Europe. So, yes, there are opportunities in the UK, but I do believe actually that Brexit could be the best thing that ever happened in Ireland because it is forcing us to be more economically independent and to look and diversify into more markets. Sonia, can I bring you in on that? You can unmute yourself. You have customers in the UK. Did Brexit spur you on to looking further afield? We always have, as a company, had a vision of sort of being Europe's most accessible patient portal. So our vision is very much pan-European. We've been fantastically fortunate with the customers and collaborators we've had in the UK, but we want to create a greater foothold for our entity across continental Europe. And that was why, kind of quite early on in 2019, I did participate in the EIT Health Bootcamp programme, and I've participated with EIT Health all along the way since. So we've been very fortunate to receive their Bridgehead Europe grant, which again, it's 40,000 euros, and it supports us to do really exciting work with what they call catalyzers, where they have these essentially living labs and partners that can support you to accelerate your product in the given market. They do all of the work, you know, analysing the market, finding partners and collaborators, a pilot site, helping us to understand the technical landscape, the telematic infrastructure, the certification and regulation we need to meet to get into particular markets. So, you know, that's a massive support for us. And yeah, I mean, you know, we set up a UK subsidiary pre-Brexit. We do have an entity there, but definitely our vision is pan-European, and there are supports there. Very much like what Daniela said, it's funding, but also it's the network that you create when you participate in these programmes and receive these grants and funding opportunities. It's the people you meet. It's the learnings that you gain about every market's intricate differences. You know, they all have slightly different requirements and expectations, culturally, politically, commercially, in terms of how you deliver a product there. Thank you very much, Sonia. Can you unmute yourself, Daniela, and I'll ask you kind of a similar related question. You worked in Manchester, I think, Daniela. I will come to my question in a moment, but my first most important question, as someone who lived in Britain for many years, is it wetter in Manchester or Dublin? I think, I don't know, I can't answer this question. I never thought about Dublin as a wet city in the sense or Manchester, because I come from the south of Italy. Which is very, very wet, not. It's not wet, but it's very humid, it's very damp. So for me actually, but anyway, I'd say Manchester is wetter then. That is the correct answer. You move on to the next question. Which was, when you are advising companies and when you are thinking about your own business, do you think automatically UK first, because it's easier culturally? Or do you say, listen, you should think seriously about Italy, you should think seriously about Croatia or Estonia, whoever. No, I consider UK as one of the country when they are not in Europe anymore. So that's one more reason, you know, why I actually consider less UK than other countries. So for example, I'll give you an example. I, we just as in the pharma, we submitted a proposal to Europe's rights in Europe, and we coordinated a consortium. So that means that we build the consortium of people across Europe. And one of the people which reach out was from Slovenia. So there was one important actually members of the consortium from Slovenia, there's Finland, there's Spain, there's Italy actually, there's a great presence of Italy in the consortium. So no, I always felt as I was a citizen of Europe always I've been put on a plane since I was 11 to do the exchange, you know, the program. And I always think there is a crucial really benefit in exchanging with people from across Europe. Okay, yeah, they're there across the sea. So yes, of course, it would be convenient. And I've lived in Manchester, great place. But there's so many people across Europe like in Croatia, Slovenia, as well as Germany, for example that are doing great work. If you come together, so you bring together, put together a consortium and, and you really can achieve innovation. If we do things together. Talking of together, were you aware of the European Enterprise Network, this giant WhatsApp group that we were talking about? Actually, no, this is news for me. There you go. It's actually great to hear. And so I'm always very, you know, aware of what happened what happens in terms of funding and opportunity but that actually it's nice to hear extremely important. And as Robert said, you just need to sign up. And then suddenly you pick your area of expertise and you can speak to would be investors you can speak to fellow entrepreneurs and startup companies and share ideas and I think Anne would fully support the idea that Irish people and especially Italians, they love to chat and they love to share their experiences. They may have different quality coffee, but they definitely love to share their experiences. And I do have a question for Sonya. So Sonya if you could unmute briefly. It comes in from Catherine Leslie. So Sonya, could you, could you tell more about your experience with the EU supports her participation in the boot camp, etc. You had mentioned that you had more detail to share about that. And it would be lovely, lovely to hear about it. That's from Catherine. Yeah, sure. Thanks for the question Catherine. Yeah, I really took advantage is all I can say of the European Institute of Technology and Innovation they've been hugely supportive. And I did something called the digital health accelerator boot camp in Trinity in 2019. It was funding of 10 K plus a tour around three countries in Europe, living labs accelerator sites, a fantastic opportunity to meet partners to understand if there was a need for your product in the market, highly, I would highly recommend it. And we also participated in their mentor and coaching network. So that's two and a half thousand euro vouchers to engage with an expert of your choice, be it in the field of regulation or market entry, etc. Once Carl Quant in Germany and once it's well of ventures in Barcelona. I participated in the women's entrepreneurship boot camp to the first the first one that they ran. And that was running collaboration with yes in Barcelona and the Galway Institute of Technology as well. So it was very, very, again, insightful learning, you know, and being again, as you mentioned Joe, connected with other founders that have similar experiences and it's quite a unique experience I think and sometimes as Francis mentioned alone the experience. You know, when you're an entrepreneur and particularly female entrepreneurs. So, so those programs are fantastic. They run programs such as, you know, bridgehead catalyzer where like that you can get a 30 or 40 K grant to expand into either Europe or beyond. And again, they give you both the training, the network, the access to market the funding it's it's fantastic. And the investment for me as well as something called did you be cube. So it's worthwhile watching out for what they call waterfall supports. So ultimately, you know, in that case it was Horizon 2020 that offered the funding to a couple of entities in Austria and Oslo and those entities then awarded grants down to the SME level so I participated in that with think biosolutions who are another Irish company. And specifically, even, you know, the small supports I know we're talking about really big, you know, 15 million grants from me I see, but even the small things are so helpful when you're on the journey. So, for example, if you're looking at the moment to look into IP and protecting your product. So, you know, it's James Walsh is the enterprise Ireland point of contact I worked with a gentleman called Genari Udu who is an IP ambassador. And essentially, there are vitures if you go to the website to, you know, two and a half ground or so to again protect your trademark, put some patent designs in place etc and protect your product in any way you can. I'm kind of, I'm happy to take it offline and give my details if I would like to talk about it any further. Okay, well thank you for that Sonya. I'm not going to facilitate that get together I'll leave that to IIE a but thank you for your advice Robert could I ask you a question. We're coming, you know we're in the final furlong as they say in horse racing. You mentioned getting your facts right getting your details in order and when you're when you're applying make sure that you have a look at the criteria. What are the biggest mistakes that SMEs make when it comes to their application. Is it leaving out detail. Is it not having the appropriate documentation that could be letters from the banks etc like that. What are the biggest mistakes that you see or hear of at the European Innovation Council. Exactly these kinds of things it's it's it's the the eye for detail and and to making sure that whatever is required is submitted and this is really something that. Again I want to stress that the opportunities really are there but there's enormous competition so if you do not have the basics. Then it's easy to put your proposal aside because there are all the others that are that have done the homework to in that respect so it's really looking carefully about about to what is being asked what do you need to submit in terms of your your your bank statements etc. And yes sometimes this is quite a bit of work but the rewards are there so I would say don't don't be. And yes sometimes it can seem complex but if you take a bit of time to look through what is there in the use of all these support networks that are there the opportunities really are worth the investment in time to look into it. Okay thank you Robert and can I bring you in and from and landing it from Enterprise Ireland and there's a very ancient aphorism in Ireland called sure it'll be grand. And I wonder whether a lot of our compatriots suffer from that. Well I guess you know us Irish do suffer a little bit from that but I would have to say Joe the companies that we are seeing coming into Europe now. Are doing a fantastic job, you know they are doing it right they are taking the advice they are preparing, you know they're putting together market entry plans. So, and I think that, you know, when when we're used to operating in the Irish and the UK market, we know each other very well, you know, and so maybe it's easier to do the, you know, to be grand. But in Europe you need to be more professional and more sophisticated there's a lot of competition out there, but we are seeing companies doing that, and we're seeing them doing an extremely well. And I think one point I would like to make is the reputation of Irish companies, Irish people Irish products Irish services across your is extremely high. And that is, you know, we're pushing an open door here. There's lots of opportunity, and there is an openness to working with Irish people. We're seeing as being the other side of that will be grand is the flexibility that we bring. And we're seeing as flexible and adaptable and nothing is too much of a client is looking for something to change. And Irish company will typically provide that. So, you know, we're doing a good job we just need to do an awful lot more of it. And what I'd like to see is more companies entering into the market. One other thing I wanted to mention as well was, in relation to or and I supports coming out of the EU, we do have a liaison office in Enterprise Ireland to can specifically help with that so horizon for example which is quite a complicated application process we do have people who will hold your in our offices in Dublin in order to help you get through that process. So back to Robert's point about, you know, you do need to prepare properly and apply and, you know, as professionally as you can and we can help you with that. Yeah, and that's all reachable on the Enterprise Ireland website. Yeah. Okay, well, listen, we're in the final straight now. Final thoughts, Daniela and Johnny. Any, any final tips that you would give to those people considering spreading their wings into the rest of the EU. And what I would just say is, just put yourself out there. There's a lot of opportunities there's a lot of help as I just said, you I get to to work and to talk all the time with people in Enterprise Ireland that are looking for example to support you and and help you choose what kind of program out there is, it's, it's a good fit for the company. They are great. And they will review your proposal as well. And so what I'm trying to say, don't be shy. Go out there. There is there's great, great opportunities. Only opportunities not barriers. I don't see any barriers. So please do. Wonderful. Sonia Neary, you can unmute yourself. Any final tips and advice. Oh, wow. I don't know how to follow that. I completely agree with Daniela. I think it's, you know, as an island, we have to take a pan European vision. We have to take a global vision. And some fantastic companies have gone ahead of us and made it look easy. And I think we should follow their path. Right. Well, let's let's move on finally to Margaret Ray from Kin Connery. Yeah, I, well, I, you know, the, the women tech EU, the only 50 companies were was, you know, funded this year, but you know, 130 companies next year is the expectation. So, you know, diversify your, your C suite, make sure that there's women on board, you know, who can apply for this. It basically is my encouragement and all of those women led companies out there, apply, apply, apply. It's worth it. Super. Well, would that all my contributors were as concise and short and brief and clear as that. Thank you so much to all of you. Thank you, Margaret Ray from Connery Innovation. Thank you, Sonia Neary from Wellola. Thank you, Anne Lannigan, the regional director for the Eurozone Central and Eastern Europe at Enterprise Ireland. Thank you, of course. And Grazia to Daniela and Gianni from Inno Farma and other companies. And Herzlichen Dank, bedanked to Robert Schroeder from the snappily titled EISMEA. My name is Joe Lynam. We now have one very clear message. Don't be shy. Do apply. Well, that rhymes. Don't be shy. Do apply, but do do your research and make sure you don't have the kind of sure it will be grand attitude. So, from all of us here at the IIEA and Enterprise Ireland, my name is Joe Lynam. I really enjoyed sharing today. Get the applications in. Ciao for now.