Dear ,

Welcome to this week's issue of Dublin Chamber Weekly. This week's issue has a special focus on the work of the Chamber's Enterprise Europe Network.

Plus, there's details of all our upcoming virtual events and lots of member company news.

We hope you enjoy the issue.

We here in the international department would like to give a heartfelt thank you for all your support of our services and Dublin Chamber throughout this most challenging year. We would like to wish you and yours a peaceful, safe and Merry Christmas and we hope for a more normal and fruitful New Year. 

Join the REACH Incubator program and get up to €120K in funding and an opportunity to work with leading corporations and their proprietary data.

REACH is an incubation programme, run by 10 core partners and 9 data providers.

The programme will create a fertile ground for startups and SMEs to solve real-world challenges of large corporations and conduct experimentation of secured and trusted data-fuelled solutions which utilize proprietary, often multi-stakeholder, industrial and personal data. 

REACH is a data-focused incubator that enables startups to work with corporations and their proprietary datasets to set up trusted and secure data value chains.

The REACH Incubator has a €3.5 Million fund to foster the creation of data value chains across Europe and is looking for 30 promising big data startups and SMEs to take part in its first round of incubation. 

Open Call Webinar - 16th January at 12:00

First REACH Incubator Open Call is ready for applications. Apply here. 

We have a number of great webinars coming up over the next few weeks. Don't miss out! 

• • • 18th December ¦ Virtual Business Network with Kingsley Aikens. Book here. 
    • 1st February ¦ Monday Wellness with Paul McGinley. Book here. 
    • 24th February ¦ Sustainability Academy - Sustainable 101. Book here. 
    • 3rd March ¦ Sustainability Academy - Carbon Footprinting. Book here. 
    • 10th March ¦ Sustainability Academy - The Circular Economy. Book here. 

SOLVIT is an informal problem-solving network created to solve problems that EU citizens or businesses are experiencing with the public administrations of EU Member States. These problems must be associated with a denial of their Internal Market rights due to Internal Market law not being applied correctly. There are SOLVIT Centres in each EU country and in Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

The Irish SOLVIT Centre is a unit within the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. A citizen or business can submit a case to SOLVIT when there seems to be a concrete, real problem for an EEA business. There must be an inter EU country element to the problem and the problem must have been caused by a foreign public administration (national, regional or local) or a private body acting on behalf of a public administration. As SOLVIT represents an informal approach to problem solving, the SOLVIT system would not be used in situations where legal proceedings are under way on the matter.

In recent years SOLVIT Ireland has dealt with several cases involving businesses based in Ireland and elsewhere within the EEA. The Irish SOLVIT Centre is not an information service and does not operate a public office however we have endeavoured to increase our number of business cases by attending events such as the Ploughing Championships and Taking Care of Business.

Further information regarding SOLVIT Ireland can be found here.

DG Trade, the European Commission office with responsibility for trade, has launched the new Access2Markets portal. The portal is an invaluable resources for any business exporting from or importing into the EU. The portal includes product-by-product information for all EU countries and for more than 120 export markets around the world on:

• Tariffs & taxes
• Customs procedures
• Rules of origin
• Trade barriers
• Product requirements
• Statistics

The portal also includes information on Brexit, beginning trade, investment, company success stories and many more topics. Access the portal here.

Recently Dublin Chamber announced the launch of MobiliseSME, a new EU pilot programme that seeks to strengthen skills within SMEs by supporting short-term cross-border secondments for managers, owners, and staff of SMEs. The secondment is partially subsidised by the European Union. Whether you are a company interested in improving your staff skills or a company interested in hosting a potential partner from another EU country, the program can offer a great added value to your business, among other things, to enhance your competitiveness and to boost your internationalisation. Find out more here. 

Last Friday we were joined by Brendan O' Brien, Head of Technical Services at Dublin City Council for a briefing on Dublin City Council’s plans for pedestrianisation and traffic changes in the city centre. Brendan gave an update on revised plans for the College Green Plaza and pedestrianisation in the Grafton Street and St. Stephen’s Green area. Watch it backhere. 

On Tuesday we had our virtual webinar with PwC on Navigating Revenue interventions and disputes for your clients. PwC’s Tax Risk and Controversy team shared their insights on the current environment and how best to navigate this to deliver the best outcomes for your clients. Watch it back here. 

On Monday we had Martin Fraser, the Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach discuss his insights and perspectives on the current issues of relevance to the business community, as well as on the medium-to-long-run challenges that lie ahead. Watch it back here.

Dublin Chamber is urging Dublin business to prepare for Brexit. There are some critical steps that must be taken to ensure your business can continue to trade after the UK leaves the EU . Read more information here.