ZABALA BRUSSELS is a SME (over 12 employees) with wide experience in supporting entities in the management of their RTD and innovation activities, as well as in technology transfer projects and activities. It is the Belgium office of a consolidated RTD and Innovation consultancy firm working across Europe on these fields since 1986. Its headquarters are located in Spain (Mutilva, next to Pamplona), having offices in Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla, Valencia and Vigo. ZABALA also has its own offices in London (UK) with 1 employee, in Paris (France) with 8 people staff and in Colombia – Bogota with 3 employees. It currently provides, on a contract basis, consultancy services related to RTD and innovation management to a portfolio of 600 organisations (including SMEs, big companies, RTD centres, universities and public organizations). As part of its services, ZABALA is specialized in providing service to public administrations in the definition of new support innovation tools (definition of new rules related with public procurement as a relevant tool to support the innovation - CPi and PPI) and in supporting the exploitation of R&D results in regional, national and European projects.
Its international project department, the one actively linked to this project, is comprised by a remarkable team of specialists (technical staff, lawyers, economists) with vast experience in project and tender management and in supporting the companies in the participation process. The core tasks of the international team comprise the preparation, negotiation and management of R&D and innovation projects, the establishment of big consortia, the communication with EC and other public administration authorities as well as the development of studies for public bodies. ZABALA currently provides this kind of services to coordinators of around 60 projects, being also involved in ten different projects whether as partner or as coordinator.
Since 2000, ZABALA has been involved in several European projects where the main aim is to support the organisations to bring their research and innovation project results to the market. In these projects ZABALA has participated in assessing how close the project results are to the market and prioritising them. Additionally, ZABALA has participated providing the following services to the organisations to support them in this process:
- Cascade Funding: definition and calls management.
- Elaboration of a public funding roadmap to support the next steps to be carried out by the organization to reach the market. ZABALA has extensive experience in public funding for innovation at regional, national and European level.
- Training for business plan elaboration and IPR.
- Training for elaboration of pitching elevators.
- Support the access to private funding: VC, Business Angels.
- Support the access to corporates and first clients in B2C environments
In addition, since 2015, ZABALA has enlarged its activities with the opening of a Social Innovation department which main role is to provide the following services to clients and projects:
- Studies on the social impact of business activity
- Social impact strategies required in European projects
- Corporate Social Responsibility programmes
- Risk analysis and strategic diagnostics (countries and sectors)
- Guidance and training on Social Innovation practices
- Due Diligence planning and Social Licensing
- Human Rights Impact Strategy and Assessment