Industrial and technological collaboration between Brussels and Quebec enterprises

For more than ten years in the context of a collaboration agreement, the Brussels Capital region and Quebec have been meeting in numerous fields of activity: employment, technological and industrial development, environment, institutional collaboration, etc.

In 2006 the two regions also implemented a collaboration programme which aims to promote the negotiation and conclusion of agreements between Quebec and Brussels PMEs around projects of an industrial or technological nature: the joint programme of industrial and technological collaboration.

Objectives of the Brussels-Quebec joint programme of industrial and technological collaboration:

Targeted at SMEs, the objective of this programme is to promote the negotiation and conclusion of industrial and technological agreements between Quebec and Brussels SMEs in the high value added sectors in order to achieve: joint development in R&D, transfer of technology and expertise and the creation of mixed companies and branches.

Beneficiaries

The programme is aimed at Brussels and Quebec SMEs. By Brussels SME, we mean an enterprise having a place of business established in the Brussels Capital region and whose:

• workforce consists of less than 250 people

• turnover is less than or equal to € 50 million

• balance sheet total is less than or equal to € 43 million

• and not more than 25% of whose capital may be held by an enterprise that does not satisfy the definition of European PME.

Means of intervention

• The requests of the enterprises are evaluated by the Brussels Enterprise Agency (BEA) and approved by the External Relations Directorate of the Ministry of the Brussels Capital region, which funds this programme from the Brussels side with regard to the objectives and access conditions defined above in concert with the Quebec Ministry of Economic Development, Innovation and Export (MDEIE) via the General Delegation of Quebec in Brussels. The files are treated in complete confidentiality.

• The identification of potential partners and the preparation of the task of the Brussels enterprise in Quebec are taken care of by BEA and the economic and commercial attaché in Montreal in collaboration with the MDEIE. Specifically the aid and support services offered to the PMEs comprise the material organisation of the stay with support in situ, the definition and analysis of the technological needs of the enterprise, the preparation of a programme of contacts and visits, as well as the reservation and payment of the costs of the Transatlantic journey.

• The operations organised in the context of this programme are presented in the form of short missions of Quebec personnel in the Brussels Capital region or of Brussels personnel in Quebec, aimed at managers and technical executives of enterprises. Any one enterprise may benefit from intervention for a maximum of two trips of two people over a period of two years.

Conditions of the intervention

• The project must be of an industrial or technological nature.

• The requesting enterprise must have been a legal entity for at least one year.

• No minimum turnover is required but the technical and financial capacity to carry out the envisaged project is one of the acceptance criteria.

• The added value of the project must be significant.

• The enterprise must satisfy the objective of partnership with the Quebec party under the terms indicated above.

• Simple, unilateral research by an importer, agent or distributor is therefore excluded from the field of the programme.

• The joint industrial and technological programme is aimed primarily at high value added sectors of activity and more particularly

• Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
• biotechnologies,
• the environment;
• health.

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