ISE is an Interreg 2 Seas project which supports businesses from 5 regions (Kent, Hauts-de-France, East & West Flanders, and the SW of the Netherlands) with becoming more internationalised & innovative. The 7 project partners helped SMEs to enable them to grow their business & find international contacts. ISE focused on 4 target sectors: Food & Drink, Mechatronics, Digital & Creative & New Materials. Since the start of ISE, over 1000 SMEs have benefited from the project by taking place in the following activities:

• 31 Taster Sessions which introduced innovation methods to SMEs
• 8 workshops on innovation and internationalisation topics with speakers and experts sharing from the other partner regions (162 SMEs)
• 117 innovation & internationalisation 1-2-1 diagnostic assessments with small businesses to provide recommendations and new contacts
• 12 sector-focused ‘Innovation Pathway’ events in France, Belgium, England and the Netherlands which brought companies together for 2 days programmes to focus on innovation, market insight etc. and to network and make new business contacts (272 SMEs involved)
• Organising 2 cross-border conferences (141 SMEs) including one digital innovation summit
• 4 cross-border clusters formed with 2 being further developed - food & drink and digital & creative. The 2nd has launched itself as the ‘Imagineers International’ cluster which will continue beyond the life of the ISE project.
• Organising 7 visits for companies to major international trade shows to focus on market trends and contact building as well as ISE ‘pitching sessions’ and networking activities to encourage joint working and contacts between businesses from the different regions (117 SMEs). The Major Innovation Events were Horecava (Amsterdam) in January 2020, CEBIT (Hannover), JEC World (Paris), Hannover Messe, Tech Open Air (Berlin), Anuga (Dusseldorf), Industry (Barcelona). Our final planned event, Tavola 2020, was cancelled due to Covid-19

Feedback from participating companies was very positive:
“I could not have achieved our exports without the ISE project.”
“I have hugely profited from ISE by acquiring valuable business growth information. It has been helpful to share information and contacts with networking groups, especially in Europe. We have also been able to sign up with one of the UK’s well know artisan food wholesalers recently thanks to ISE networking influence.”
"I met new businesses and learnt about new processes, materials and applications"