ALLIANCES
ENTERPRISE EUROPE NETWORK (EEN)
The European Exhibition Industry Alliance is Associate Partner with the European Commission's Enterprise Europe Network (EEN). The EEN helps small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make the most of business opportunities in the EU and beyond. It helps SMEs innovate and grow internationally. The EEN offers many services free of charge by experts in around 600 member organisations, including chambers of commerce and industry, technology centres, universities and development agencies.
EEIA share the interest to boost SME internationalisation and promotes trade fairs as a very effective tool. It makes sense especially for SMEs or start-ups to concentrate on participating in exhibitions taking place in Europe as a first step to internationalise. EEIA underlines that early coordination between the different players is crucial to avoid parallel structures, to seize synergies and maximise effects to the benefit of SMEs.
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INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS (IPR)
The European Exhibition Industry Alliance promotes the respect of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) to exhibitors and visitors of exhibitions.
During exhibitions, innovations and product novelties are disclosed, the latest trends and competitors's offers can be seen. Exhibition organisers aim at providing an inspiring and fair business environment, therefore many run initiatives on their exhibitions to raise awareness of IPR and support enforcement of IPR, especially directed to SMEs.
The European Exhibition Industry Alliance exchanges with the European Commission on the isssue and partners with its IPR Helpdesks. A series of exhibition related fact sheets and leaflets has been published. They can be downloaded here.
Get more info about the IPR Helpdesks here:
European IPR Helpdesk
China IPR SME Helpdesk
South-East Asia IPR SME Helpdesk
Latin America IPR SME Helpdesk
Furthermore, EEIA has partnered up with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), which has recently signed collaboration agreements with EMECA, the European Major Exhibition Centres Association and UFI, the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry. With these agreements, the EUIPO consolidates its connection with exhibition venues and event organisers across the entire value chain, reaching out to a wider audience that could benefit from the use of Intellectual Property and EUIPO initiatives. Both EMECA and UFI members will benefit from this collaboration by gaining a deeper understanding of why IP can help businesses and how to help exhibitors protect their IP and prevent counterfeiting when showcasing their products at trade fairs. For this the EUIPO will offer expertise through training, webinars, and other collaborative actions.
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Do you need more information on IPR?
Watch our latest Webinar on How to protect your Intellectual Propery Rights at trade fairs internationally? co-organised by IP Helpdesk and EEIA.
Get free information and support on your Intellectual Property issues and apply for the European Union Intellectual Property Office's SME Fund.
Download our brand new leaflets on IPR protection:
PROJECTS
EEIA is part of the EIC Overseas Trade Fairs 2.0 Programme (OTF 2.0)
OTF 2.0 supports European Innovation Council's beneficiaries to promote their commercialisation strategy in foreign markets and leverage business opportunities at the most popular trade fairs, strengthening the EU innovation brand around the world. Selected EIC-funded SMEs, startups and scale-ups from EU Member States and associated countries will have access to the programme.
"BUSINESS BEYOND BORDERS"
Exhibition Alliance consortium won EU tender for B2B meetings at trade fairs
A consortium comprising the two EEIA organisations EMECA and UFI, Eurochambres and communication partner LOW have won the EUR 1.35 million contract to manage the organisation of EU to Third Country B2B events at ten international exhibitions in Europe and outside. The offer handed in by the group under the lead of Eurochambres achieved an outstanding score at the evaluation. The project was kicked off in October 2016 and ran for 30 months. It has been managed by a project team in Brussels and branded under the name “Business Beyond Borders”.
The ten selected trade fairs benefitted from financial support and team up with their local chambers for the implementation of the matchmaking and policy events. These offers represented an attractive add-on to their exhibitions for existing and potential new exhibitors and visitors. Aligned PR across all levels gave a high visibility to the participating exhibitions.
The objective of this initiative by the European Commission was to encourage and practically support EU businesses, in particular SMEs and clusters of businesses, to operate internationally. It was embedded into a variety of programmes, measures and networks financed by the European Commission. Possible synergies between all programmes have been exploited and the networks acted as multipliers for this project. In addition to the B2B, B2C (business to cluster) and C2C (cluster to cluster) brokerage events, a half day policy conference was offered.
