<< Background >>Changing market conditions, digitalisation and emergence of Internet of Things, require from SMEs reinvention of their value proposition threatening their survival as they often lack capabilities to innovate and compete on the global market on their own. That makes the ability to innovate collaboratively (engage in open innovation) a key competence for SMEs in the current and future market conditions (Vanhaverbeke 2017). However, currently open innovation (OI) competencies are rare in SMEs and, if present among SMEs, are usually limited to high-tech sectors. Meanwhile, OI support for SMEs is in most of EU countries in its inception. Up till now, the most popular support approaches are based on funding schemes for SMEs engagement in innovation with universities and other organisations and matching services. Meanwhile, the issue of SMEs readiness to engage in OI is still being neglected or, in the best case, approached based on methodologies transferred from large organisations. Such methodologies are often ineffective in the scope of SMEs activities (Vanhaverbeke 2017). More, OI support is usually targeted at the most capable tech-intensive sectors. But, EU economy is strongly dependent on SMEs activities and in case of many EU regions no/low-tech industries are the main agents of economic activity and job creation. Without engagement in innovation, those SMEs are highly sensitive to market turbulence and their future sustainability is at risk. Innovation becomes especially strong differentiator in the Agri-food industry, where application of new technologies and modern processes creates massive competitiveness gaps between firms (Byrum & Bingham 2016).Lack of understanding of OI opportunities, lack of the competencies to effectively engage in OI and to integrate it in company strategies are serious barriers for SMEs across non-tech sectors to engage and benefit from innovation, which decreases their competitiveness and resilience of EU economy. Especially, SMEs in usually highly traditional industries such as agri-food sector are struggling to embrace modern collaborative strategies for innovation such as OI. But, such industries are of high relevance for European economy, in many EU regions being a relevant pillar of their economy and future orientation related, among others, with smart specialization strategies. The high relevance of OI for competitiveness of SMEs and their ability to engage in meaningful innovation makes overcoming barriers to common engagement of EU SMEs in open innovation a critical issue for competitiveness and innovativeness of EU. However, measures supporting SMEs engagement in collaboration will not yield desired benefits if SMEs don't increase their abilities to effectively engage and benefit from collaborative development methodologies.<< Objectives >>Considering the high importance of OI competencies for SMEs, lack of effective solutions to support their development in no/low tech sectors and high-relevance of increasing OI within the agri-food and bioeconomy sector, the VOIS project is looking to contribute to filling this gap. It will support building SMEs managers ability to effectively engage in open innovation activities to enable SMEs in no- and low-tech SMEs related with agro-alimentary production and bioeconomy active engagement in relevant innovation and ensuring innovation-based sustainability of their businesses. Within the project, the VOIS partnership will develop a comprehensive Virtual Open Innovation Environment allowing SMEs to, in an effective way, improve their open innovation competencies and ability to implement open innovation in their firms. To this end, the Virtual OI Environment will incorporate 3 specific areas with opportunities for SMEs competence building:Area 1 – Organisational Area in a form of practical tutorial regarding open innovation strategies/methodologies for SMEs for capacitating participants to design them and implement them in their organisations, Area 2 – Individual Development Area focused on development of Open Innovation Competencies of Managers as individual leaders, competencies required for their ability to manage activities in the scope of open innovation. Following the CMOI model (Podmetina et al. 2017) this area will address :1.Building ability to work with people from different communities, disciplines and functions.2.Managing collaborative innovation processes.3.Knowledge management in-house and across organisations.4.Communication and networking.5.Cultural awareness.6.Adaptability and flexibility.Area 3 – Open Innovation repository – a resource base gathering already available tools and support measures for SMEs open innovation.Within the collaboration between international experts from business, academia and social sector with diversified knowledge, competencies and economic context, partners will develop and disseminate the Virtual OI environment, not only as a professional development tool for SME managers, but also as a relevant tool for VET and SME support organizations for providing relevant market oriented opportunities to their stakeholders. Moreover, the project will bring together a group of international partners with diversified profiles and expertise to work together toward developing highly novel solution for support of OI competencies in SMEs within agro-food and bioeconomy sector that will provide the organisations unique tools to support competitiveness of business agents in their regions and a pool of staff with multidisciplinary expertise in the area, unique at the regional and international level. Through generating the unique expertise, tools and increasing OI competencies of SMEs in the targeted sectors, the project is expected to contribute to increased capitalisation on policy measures for support of open innovation in EU, as well as more directly to competitiveness and innovativeness of the SMEs benefiting from the developed solutions.<< Implementation >>To this end the project will develop, implement and test the Virtual Open Innovation Environment designed as a one-stop- support for agri-food and bioeconomy SMEs to improve the ability to engage in and benefit from open innovation. To effectively reach this objective complementing the solution development transversal activities will cover management and coordination across the partnership, as well as monitoring, evaluation and quality assurance. Some of key milestones will include testing of the solution with the target group, consultations with External Advisory Board, multiplier events for exchange of the knowledge developed and dissemination of the solution among relevant stakeholders with aim to foster application of project results and of the lessons learnt. However, to ensure the project and solution realistic impact, the partnership will pay special attention to activities related with communication, dissemination and engagement of stakeholders, with specific strategy covering a mix of virtual, media-mediated and face-to-face activities carefully curated for maximum impact and outreach among relevant stakeholders.<< Results >>Within the project the main outcome will take a form of integrated Virtual OI Environment with methodology and tools for capacitating SME managers in Agro-Food and Bioeconomy sectors to engage and benefit from open innovation, with comprehensive modular development program consisting of 12 modules covering 2 critical development paths - 1st the development of OI competencies required at strategic organisational level; and 2nd the development of individual OI competencies of SMEs managers, both further complemented by OI repository gathering existing relevant resources (support measures and competence base) to allow users a one-stop-access-point to possible development and support opportunities for open innovation in SMEs in the Agrofood and Bioeconomy sectors (see IO1 description for details). Additionally, intermediary results for support of project development, implementation and impact will cover among others, management, communication and monitoring strategies, communication and dissemination materials (including webpage, social media pages and relevant contents, newsletters, leaflet, press releases etc.), performance, financial and dissemination reports, exploitation agreements, multiplier events, piloting questionnaires and reports.Besides the physical outcomes, the project is expected to result in:- increased competencies of SMEs managers in agro-food and bioeconomy sectors to effectively implement open-innovation activities in their companies' activities and successfully manage open innovation processes,- easy access of agro-food and bioeconomy SMEs managers to open innovation competencies development,- increased ability of VET and SMEs support organisations to support development of innovation competencies of SMEs managers, - development of critical competencies of partner organisations to provide support for SMEs in agro-food and bioeconomy to modernise and become innovative, - increased understanding and knowledge regarding open innovation, specific strategies and OI competencies among involved staff, - increased innovation-orientation within the agro-food and bio-economy in involved regions, - increased collaboration toward fostering innovation in agro-food and bioeconomy at regional and international levels.