Fablab as entrepreneurship supporting tool for innovation agencies
Fablabs – digital fabrication laboratory – enable creation of new enterprises, offers an environment supporting innovation, and makes prototyping more available and affordable. Nowadays, FabLabs are increasingly being adopted by schools, universities and museums as platforms for project-based, hands-on STEM education. Despite the fact FabLab is great tool supporting technological prototyping and fostering entrepreneurship and innovations, there are only a few innovation agencies in Europe which included this platform in its services for SMEs. Therefore the main aim of the proposed project FABLABIA – Fablab as entrepreneurship supporting tool for innovation agencies is to gather the experiences of innovation agencies who use FabLab as an innovation tool for the benefit of SMEs and to turn it into a codified good practice manual (DOP). 
The proposed project will have a direct positive impact on SMEs’ capacity in rapid prototyping and product testing. Innovation agencies will help these individuals with market research for their solutions. On the other hand, project will have impact on innovation agencies too. It will lead to improvement in the design and quality of delivered innovation support services. In the process, the FabLab business model and its adaptation to the local conditions, will be explored. This approach will facilitate the uptake of FabLab-based services for SMEs by any interested innovation support agency beyond the consortium members. In this way the project will contribute to raising the level of innovation support provided to SMEs throughout the EU.