The Round 2 of the Internationalisation lump sum call, within the cascade funding scheme of the European project CircInWater, opened on 19th September. The objective is to provide financial support to facilitate SMEs to visit trade fairs or participate in meet-the-buyer events in North America (Canada and USA).

In this second round, around 10-12 SMEs will also be selected and will be granted financial support of a maximum of EUR 2 000 per application to cover travel and accommodation expenses, registration fees or other related costs to participate in activities and events in North America (Canada and USA).

In addition, Aragonese companies can count on the support of Aragon Exterior through the specialised international consultancy service of AREX, which offers a special support of 50% of the costs of consultancy and advice in the USA or Canada up to a maximum of 2,000 euros/company. These services must be carried out in addition to the action supported by the CircInWater programme and in which the company is selected. This service will be adapted to the needs of the company and may cover the following actions:
• Preparation of a market report with information of interest to the company (sector, barriers, competitors, etc).
• Preparation of a meeting agenda at the destination according to profiles of interest to the applicant company.
• Specific advice on tax, accounting and labour issues.
• Any other service directly related to the company’s strategy in the markets will be subject to assessment.

Those interested can contact Aragon Exterior (Sara Espuelas,sara@aragonexterior.es) and/or Zinnae (Marisa Fernández,mfernandez@zinnae.org) to discuss their specific case and services required.

After the success of the previous Innovation lump sum and Knowledge lump sum calls, this is the last call of the CircInWater project, a project in which ZINNAE is the general coordinator of the consortium formed by five European clusters to carry it out.