NEF update
As of January 2010 the EC Negotiation Facility NEF has been upgraded to NEF2.
The main difference is that now in NEF2 not only administrative data are required, but also whole sections of the Description of Work (DoW, Annex I to the grant agreement) such as a Breakdown of the Workpackages, Tasks, Deliverables and Milestones.
NEF2 gives us a clue that in the future, all of the DoW will be produced online.
What do we know about RTD-intensive SMEs?
The Institute for Prospective Technology Studies (IPTS), an Institute of the EU Joint Research Center (JRC), published a Working Paper dealing with R&D-intensive SMEs in Europe. The paper typifies different groups of R&D-intensive SMEs according to their inputs into the innovation process and makes recommendations how they can be supported most efficiently.
The paper can be downloaded here.