HAMAG-BICRO
                                                              www.hamagbicro.hr

HAMAG-BICRO, Croatian Agency for SMEs, Innovations and Investments was founded with the aim of enhancing SMEs development, catalysing the innovation process and promoting investments. During the 22 years of operation, HAMAG-BICRO has been consistently committed to growth and development of SMEs and crafts in Croatia by facilitating their acces to finance. The Agency's main objective is reflected in the strategic creation of a unique system that would provide support to enterpreneurs through all development stages of operation - starting from research and development of an idea to commercialization and placement on the market. The Agency is an independent institution under the supervision of the Ministry of  Economy, SMEs and Crafts.

Experiences in PPI / PcP

HAMAG-BICRO has the role of an implementing body to support innovations provided to the private sector, throughout the key national strategies.

HAMAG-BICRO has so far had 6 calls for Proof of Concept (PoC) program. Although not linked to public procurement, this program supports projects in the phase of technology validation and prototype development. This program coincides with PCP in many ways, also regarding the gradual phases of validation of the project. Therefore can PoC serve as the basis for implementation of PCP and PPI procedures in Croatia. Since 2010, over 150 projects have been financed and currently there are 62 in implementation. More information can be found at: hamagbicro.hr. Apart from that, HAMAG-BICRO has participated in the organization of several “hackathons” where the output was the prototype of an application solving a public need (for example, project SEETechnology – need defended by the Ministry of Health and in cooperation with Croatian Health Insurance Fund HZZO).

Currently a cross-border PPI project is being conducted, PPI4Waste, through the City of Zagreb Holding - Waste Management Division. More information can be found at: http://www.ppi4waste.eu/.

REA Sjever, Croatian Energy Regional Agency participates in the Prominent MED, also a PPI project.

Partner role in project

HAMAG-BICRO will be the network partner in the PPI2Innovate project. The Agency will be responsible for establishment of PPI Competence Centre (CC) in Croatia and will create linkages with procurers out of project ecosystem and creation of awareness and sustainability of CC. Their goal is to take role of a ‘national administrator’. HAMAG-BICRO will create PPI2Innovate Map of their region where 8 implementable PPI projects will be identified. Also they will prepare in cooperation with other PPs Action plan for their CC.

In TWP3 they will participate with all other PPs at all pilot projects to gain experiences and knowledge trough “learning by doing” concept. This Agency will gain practical experiences from 4 pilot projects on all governmental levels from different countries and therefore they will be able to provide more sophisticated support of PPI paradigm what will enrich the added value of their CC. Since the activities of PPI2Innovate are in direct correspondence with their mission, they will secure maintaining of CC in Croatia at least for following 3 years after project closure.