Funding Opportunities for Hungarian Small and Medium Sized Enterprises : With a focus on Research and Innovation

Abstract

The thesis was written for a Hungarian proposal writer office in order to help them to expand their palette to international research and innovation projects, just like the new framework programme of the European Union, called Horizon 2020. The company works with Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs), therefore the focus of the thesis was on that sector.

The aim of the thesis was to explore the SME sector of Hungary, to give an overall picture of the EU budget and the recent financial framework period for 2014-2020. The paper focuses on opportunities available for SMEs in the EU level, and draw attention on the importance of research and innovation.

The thesis concludes where does Hungary stand in the EU level, and what should be done to improve this, by indicating the situation of the SME sector and access to finance compared to the other European Union member states. The paper includes a survey that was collected among Hungarian and foreigner SMEs to show the problems and difficulties SMEs face when applying to framework programs.