<< Background >>During the last 2 decades switching from labor intensive to innovation-oriented economy has been a key priority of EU. In this scope, a high priority has been put on upskilling of low-skilled adults and adjustment of competencies of human resources to the new market requirements. While big competences and skills gaps still exist within the EU economy, taking advantage of current upskilling efforts of individuals requires openness and ability of managers to put the new future-oriented skills to work within day-to-day business activities. Meanwhile, stakeholders engaged in multiple VET projects targeted on building innovation-oriented competencies among low-skilled adults and adults in needs for requalification has reported that lack of proper culture in their organisations and especially lack of ability and openness of SMEs managers to engage employees in decision-making and more collaborative work methodologies is a critical barrier to put their skills into practical application within their professional environment and to reach realistic benefits of their investment in upskilling. That is a relevant issue for EU struggling with the skill mismatch issue. From the other side, EU struggles to ensure wide engagement of SMEs in innovation, which is, among other barriers, related with lack of competencies and abilities to build proper organisational culture for innovation, that will allow to translate individual potential of the SME team into effective implementation of innovation and competitive advantage and sustainability for the SMEs. The inability of managers to put in place proper innovation environment and ensure optimal use of resources and competencies within their organisation is a common threat to sustainability and growth of SMEs especially in no/low tech industries, as well as to well-being of the employees in SMEs lacking innovation culture and their job security.<< Objectives >>To address the issue, common especially in countries with traditionally hierarchical professional culture, the InC partnership is looking to develop and test a solution for developing competencies of SMEs managers in no/low tech sectors (commonly not associated with innovation) to build innovation culture within their companies that will foster pro-innovative orientation of their teams and capitalization on individual competencies of their employees within SMEs.Within the InC activities, the partnership is looking to offer relevant and adjusted to specific needs of the target group development program that will allow them to gain practical competencies for implementing innovation culture in their SMEs. InC will also provide the new solution to VET and SMEs support sector to enable them to support 1/development of relevant innovation competencies among their stakeholders, 2/implementation of innovation culture in no/low tech SMEs, and 3/overcoming no/low tech SMEs' common barriers to effective engagement in innovation. The project is also expected to have significant impact on the ability of engaged partners to provide professional support to SMEs interested in development of innovation culture and relevant in this scope competencies.More, the partnership will put strong attention to building awareness of key importance of innovation culture in SMEs within broad SMEs' economic environment.<< Implementation >>To this end, the main activities will be related with delivering and testing a development program targeted at no/low tech SME managers covering:1. Awareness building for recognition of the importance for innovation and fostering innovation culture in SMEs – a program covering a mix of face-to-face and online activities and awareness campaign for sensitization of SMEs managers about relevance of developing pro-innovative environment within their organisations,2. Tools for increasing understanding of innovation concepts and their applicability in no/low tech sectors for building competitiveness and sustainability of SMEs,3. Practically oriented computer-mediated competence development program covering development within 5 thematic lines: i/Designing and leading innovation environment, ii/ Building the right team – hiring and positioning of HR for successful engagement in innovation, iii/Fostering innovation through communication, iv/Lean start-up, v/Digital solutions for fostering innovative culture, followed by the innovation culture challenge – a collection of practical challenges for SMEs managers to be implemented in day-to-day professional activities, based on individual task delivery system as learning-by-doing e-guide to implementing innovation culture in SME.To effectively reach InC objectives, 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, knowledge exchange activities among partner organisations, consultations with External Advisory Board, definition of exploitation strategy, 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 development program for building competencies for implementing innovation culture in SMEs among SMEs managers in no/low tech sectors and methodologies and tools for VET, SME support organisations and other relevant stakeholders to support SMEs innovation culture and overcoming barriers to innovation within no/low tech sectors. Intellectual outputs produced for this purpose will cover:- InC Sensitisation Methodology and Tools,- InC Innovation Cards,- InC Competence development program,- InC Innovation Culture Challenge,- InC Online Platform.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 no/low tech sectors to effectively implement innovation culture in their companies and successfully translate innovation efforts into improved performance and sustainability of their SME, - easy access of SMEs managers to competencies development for building innovation culture, - 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 implementing innovation culture in no/low tech SMEs, - increased understanding and knowledge regarding different facets of innovation culture among involved staff, - increased innovation-orientation of SMEs in involved regions, - increased collaboration toward fostering innovation culture in no/low tech SMEs at regional and international levels.