Representatives of the Danube region states, beneficiaries of the KnowING IPR Project “Fostering Innovation in the Danube Region through Knowledge Engineering and IPR Management”, met today, December 20, 2021, for an online final event.

Present at the event, representatives of the Danube Transnational Programme presented to the participants the latest developments in the implementation of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR), including transnational cooperation and support programs and funds to support innovation and competitiveness of companies in the Danube Region.

During the event, important topics were discussed to all segments of the KnowING IPR area of impacts, including the future programme funding and the parts towards reaching EUSDR goals with the emphasis on Priority area activities. Next, various aspects of the IP rights innovation, research and acquisition process, the role of intellectual property in increasing the competitiveness of enterprises, the importance of technology transfer offices, transnational cooperation and services in the field of IP and funding instruments were tackled.

In the three and a half years of activity, the consortium, whose partner is also the State Agency on Intellectual Property of the Republic of Moldova, has prepared and reported a total of 137 deliverables and 21 results. The main result of the project is the KnowING HUB Platform - a complex online database for providing access to patent information and non-patent literature, equipped with intellectual property rights (IPR) extraction and management tools for both basic and advanced users. It is a complete service offered online, free of charge, available on https://www.knowing-ipr.eu/.

Other project results include the development of KnowING HUB Training KITs - a set of instructional and educational materials and guides for information providers, basic and advanced users of the platform, as well as the KnowING IPR Helpdesk Service, which provides assistance and instructions on technical and general protocol matters of the KnowING HUB platform.

We should also mention two IPR mentoring programmes for SMEs; higher education institutions and research institutions (HEI & RI) and startups from project Member States.