ZENIT GmbH
Services for enterprises and the public sector

Enterprises have a wide variety of different requirements: Market strategies, product devel-opment or questions about finance are just some of the topics, if however predominant ones. And the public sector also needs effective and targeted support for its measures in the areas of structural and innovation policy. Both are core tasks for ZENIT GmbH, a consulting firm based in Mülheim an der Ruhr.

As National Contact Point for various EU programmes on behalf of the national government, ZENIT makes an important contribution to increasing the number of German participants by offering a complete service package which includes advice for applicants. Programme man-agement also covers marketing and PR activities, time planning, project monitoring and budget control, organisation of events, reporting, supervision of funding as well as transpar-ent and ongoing communication with the client.

Now that the work of the long-established European networks of Euro Info Centres and Inno-vation Relay Centres has been merged from Spring 2008 onwards into the new Enterprise Europe Network, ZENIT - as a member of this network - is offering new as well as tried and tested services under the name of NRW.Europa, together with NRW.Bank. Services range from the provision of information to assistance in tapping EU funding programmes to tech-nology transfer. This represents an excellent starting point for both small and medium-sized enterprises as well as research oriented institutions and universities to establish transna-tional business contacts and other types of partnership.

ZENIT GmbH also demonstrates its project management skills in the running of various pro-jects and programmes of the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is the administrative office for the regional initiative "NRW: Future through Innovation" (Zukunft durch Innova-tion.NRW) and central contact point for information about regional, national and EU funding. For our small and medium-sized clientele, we check whether R&D projects are eligible for funding, advise on suitable programmes and help in project planning, including the identifica-tion of project partners.
On behalf of various ministries, ZENIT runs projects with immediate value and relevance for enterprises. That means not only assistance in terms of content but also financial support from public funding schemes.

One of the main pillars of ZENIT is the ZENIT Association (Trägerverein ZENIT e.V.), the main objective of which is to nurture contacts between entrepreneurs and other decision-makers. With its entrepreneurs' meetings, it offers an exclusive forum for open-minded dis-cussion and its cluster events give members and guests the opportunity to exchange ideas and launch joint activities.

In addition to the ZENIT Association with its some 200 members, the following are share-holders of ZENIT GmbH, which was founded in 1984: the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and a consortium of banks, comprising NRW.Bank, the private Bankenvere-inigung NRW and the WGZ-Bank AG Westdeutsche Genossenschafts-Zentralbank (WGZ BANK). ZENIT employs some 45 people, most of whom generally have many years' practical experience in business and either an engineering or economics background. PROvendis GmbH, the agency responsible for marketing patents from the region's 24 universities, is a 100% subsidiary of ZENIT.