European Commission

It is time to meet our last EEPA 2019 category winner, German project “Start-Up Your Future” the winner of the Responsible and Inclusive Entrepreneurship category at the EEPA finals at the SME Assembly 2019 in Helsinki.

“Start-Up Your Future” is a pilot project of the Wirtschaftsjunioren Deutschland (WJD), funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. It aims to help refugees in Berlin-Brandenburg to set up their own businesses by giving them support and offering them the option of self-employment through mentoring partnerships with Gründerpaten. The mentorships invite voluntary mentors to guide refugee entrepreneurs through the founding process, from brainstorming ideas to writing a business plan. Since the project began, 185 mentorships have been implemented, 207 refugees have been helped in their business ventures and 22 businesses have received support.

How did you first hear about the national competition and why did you decide to enter?

We heard about the national competition from Ms. Kummer from RKW Kompetenzzentrum and saw it as a good opportunity to encourage others to get involved in the field of the social and economic integration of refugees and migrants. By entering the national competition, we got the chance to present our programme and share positive success stories with a wider audience.

What was it like to win the award?

Being awarded with an EEPA prize is a great honour for us. Winning this award shows us that our efforts to successfully establish a target group-oriented offer for refugees who want to become founders have paid off. Special thanks go to our volunteer mentors, who have contributed significantly to this success story. We would also like to thank our founders, who brought this mentoring program alive with their good ideas. Unfortunately, our team could not be present at the SME Assembly so we would also like to thank our EEPA National Coordinator Ms. Kummer from the RKW who represented us and accepted our prize on our behalf. Thank you very much!

How did winning the award impact your work?

It is really motivating to have your work recognised at European level. The award is very important for both national and international visibility for the project and represents an opportunity to disseminate the project and increase its replication potential.

Why should others enter EEPA 2020? What advice would you give them?

We would definitely recommend participating in EEPA as it is a good opportunity to exchange experiences and views with other European organisations.

What are your plans for the future?

Start-Up Your Future has constantly learned from ongoing activities and improved its structure over the course of the last 2.5 years. We have learnt that our approach can be applied to other target groups and regions and hope to see the concept expand. The final project evaluation also underlined the strong potential to transfer the Start-Up Your Future approach elsewhere. The evaluation further highlighted that mentorships between voluntary entrepreneurs and refugees and migrants are a valid way to foster integration on a social and economic level.

The project funding will expire by March 2020, so the final phase will focus on the examination of the key learnings, which will be available and published in the first quarter of 2020.

Keep coming back to Promoting Enterprise for more EEPA 2019 winner testimonials and don’t forget to watch their winning moments on our YouTube channel:

The European Enterprise Promotion Awards 2019 celebrated the best of the best in a ceremony on the 2^nd day of the SME Assembly 2019. On 26 November 2019, six category winners were awarded with EEPA prizes, and an overall Grand Jury Prize winner was crowned as being the most outstanding project across the six categories for 2019.

Congratulations once again to the EEPA class of 2019!

Promoting the Entrepreneurial Spirit

Haven Incubator CVBA-SO, a safe port for young experimentation, Belgium

Investing in Entrepreneurial Skills

IDEA Innovation & Entrepreneurship Centre, Cyprus

Improving the Business Environment

Fomento de la Contratacion Publica con Pymes, Spain

Supporting the Internationalisation of Business

HealthTech Nordic, Sweden

Supporting the Development of Green Markets and Resource Efficiency

TILOS, Greece

Responsible and Inclusive Entrepreneurship

Start-Up Your Future, Germany

Grand Jury Prize

Green PAC iLab, The Netherlands

Time to introduce the last of our shortlisted projects for EEPA 2019! These three projects were chosen by the EEPA 2019 Jury to compete in the EEPA 2019 finals at the SME Assembly in Helsinki this November.

Today we meet the projects nominated at European level in our final category, Category 6: Responsible and Inclusive Entrepreneurship.

Start-Up Your Future, Germany

“Start-Up Your Future” is a pilot project of the Wirtschaftsjunioren Deutschland (WJD), funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. It aims to help refugees in Berlin-Brandenburg to set up their own businesses by giving them support and offering them the option of self-employment through mentoring partnerships with Gründerpaten. The partnerships invite voluntary mentors to guide refugee entrepreneurs through the startup process, from brainstorming ideas to writing a business plan. Since the project began, 185 start-up sponsorships have been implemented, 207 refugees have been helped in their business ventures and 22 startups have received support.

Insieme per il lavoro, Together for Work, Italy

Together for Work facilitates the inclusion of low-level autonomy individuals, including those in vulnerable situations living in the metropolitan area of Bologna and specifically, unemployed young people and adults in difficult financial and social situations, into the labour market. The project’s work is in line with the sustainable development goals aimed at ending poverty and providing employment for all. This is done through horizontal cooperation, via awareness actions and active involvement of local companies, professional training bodies, associations, unions and the non-profit sector. In the first two years 135 companies were involved and 260 individual placements in companies were achieved.

Reborn Programme – Programa Renace, Spain

The REBORN initiative reduces and where possible eliminates debts of businessmen and entrepreneurs whose businesses closed as a consequence of the financial crisis. Run by the Institute of Development, the initiative consists of a programme of exoneration of the liabilities accumulated through extrajudicial agreements agreed by the Public Authorities. The programme is an incentive to re-start entrepreneurial activities without entrepreneurs having to enter employment or committing fraud when restarting their business. So far, 69 companies and self-employed people in critical situations have managed to save their businesses, and a total of 7.3 million euros has been exonerated to allow entrepreneurs to start again and create employment for others.

Have a look at all of the 2019 shortlisted projects right here on the Portal!

• Promoting the Entrepreneurial Spirit
• Investing in Entrepreneurial Skills
• Improving the Business Environment
• Supporting the Internationalisation of Business
• Supporting the Development of Green Markets and Resource Efficiency

Don’t forget to have a look at all of the EEPA 2019 national winners that represent the top projects across all of the participating countries right here.

The European Enterprise promotion Awards (EEPA) are an opportunity for outstanding projects from across the European Union and COSME countries to be recognised for their work in supporting entrepreneurs and small businesses.

The sixth category in which projects compete is Responsible and inclusive entrepreneurship. The projects listed below are national winners in this category and will be considered by the EEPA 2019 Jury for a place on the 2019 European shortlist.

Finland: The Shortcut Startup Entrepreneurship Track

France: L’incubateur de commerces de centre-ville (The incubator for town centre businesses)

Germany: Start-Up Your Future

Greece: Regeneration of sugarcane cultivation, revival of traditional sugarcane molasses product

Italy: Insieme per il lavoro, (Together for Work)

Latvia: Atbildīga biznesa vēstneši (Responsible Business Ambassadors)

Netherlands: Move2Social

Slovakia: Responsibly for the community of the blind and partially sighted (support of the Slovak Blind and Partially Sighted Union – ÚNSS)

Spain: Reborn Programme – Programa Renace

This year this category received 9 entries from a variety of programmes, including projects helping refugees integrate into local business ecosystems, working to revive traditional farming practices to create jobs for underprivileged groups, bringing responsible businesses together to help impart lessons to other business owners and more.

This is the last EEPA category and you have met all of the national winners. But which national winners will make it onto the EEPA 2019 European shortlist? Stay tuned to the News Portal to find out!

About the EEPA selection process

The competition has two stages. Applicants must first compete at national level to be eligible to compete at European level. For the national competition, each country selects up to two entries to be nominated for the European competition.

A shortlist of nominees will be chosen by a European jury. All nominees from the national and European competitions will be invited to attend the final awards ceremony. The ceremony recognises the winners for their efforts and gives them the opportunity to present themselves in a pan-European environment.

The European Enterprise Promotion Awards (EEPA) are back again for another cycle to identify and reward the best projects from across Europe. Get ready to see the most innovative and inspiring projects from across Europe compete against each other to win a coveted EEPA 2019 prize.

On Tuesday 29 January, EEPA 2019 and the project nominations, which will be happening on a national level, were officially opened. National deadlines are individual to each participating country and will be communicated by the National Coordinators. Once the national competitions have taken place, European level submissions will be accepted until the deadline on 03 July. Once the European nominations have been received, the EEPA 2019 Jury meeting will take place in mid-September which will be followed by the announcement of the shortlist on by the end of September. The final step will be the prestigious awards ceremony, which will take place in Helsinki, Finland on Tuesday 26 November as part of the annual SME Assembly.

Public bodies and public-private partnerships from across the EU Member States, will be competing for the coveted awards, which go to the most imaginative and successful initiatives that support entrepreneurship and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). All the information about the awards and application process can be found on the DG Growth website, and is available in all EU languages.

The 2019 EEPA categories are as follows:

• Promoting the entrepreneurial spirit
• Investing in entrepreneurial skills
• Improving the business environment
• Supporting the internationalisation of business
• Supporting the development of green markets and resource efficiency
• Responsible and inclusive entrepreneurship

EEPA is a great opportunity to be recognised on a European level and to meet like-minded Europeans and international actors working to promote and advocate for SMEs. If you are interested in applying, make sure to have a look at the application information page and speak to your national coordinator. There are also past EEPA winner testimonials available to inspire your entry and to learn more about the competition. For more information about EEPA 2018 watch the 2018 winners’ videos on our YouTube channel!

The secretariat team look forward to supporting you through the 2019 EEPA campaign. For support with social media, blogs and promoting EEPA in your country please contact Megan Gardner megan.gardner@gopacom.eu for all other technical questions, please contact Ann Garrot, Secretariat Manager ann.garrot@LOWeurope.eu.

Stay updated with all EEPA news by following us on Twitter (@EEPA_EU and #EEPA2019) and Facebook (@PromotingEnterprise).

We have reached the final EEPA 2018 category, Responsible and Inclusive Entrepreneurship. This category recognises projects and initiatives that promote corporate social responsibility among small and medium-sized enterprises and entrepreneurship among disadvantaged groups such as the unemployed, legal migrants, disabled, or people from ethnic minorities. For the 2018 competition, projects competing in this category come from France, Germany and Ireland.

Don’t forget to read about the shortlisted projects in Category 1: Promoting the Entrepreneurial Spirit, Category 2: Investing in entrepreneurial skills, Category 3: Improving the Business Environment, Category 4: Improving the Business Environment and Category 5: Supporting the Development of Green Markets and Resource Efficiency.

France: Initiative remarquable

The Remarkable Initiative operates within the ‘Initiative France’ network and specialises in loans that are interest-free and without a guarantee. These are granted in addition to local loans received by the entrepreneurs from the local ‘Initiative France’ platform. The interest-free loan increases the enterprise funds, facilitates access to bank funding and is repaid over a maximum of five years. It also comes with a mentoring and sponsorship plan established jointly between the entrepreneur and the local platform. The loan favours enterprises that combine job creation, economic success, innovation and responsible commitments to their local communities and environment.

Germany: ProjectTogether

ProjectTogether is a leading digital incubator for social start-ups. As the first contact for young founders of social projects, ProjectTogether identifies functioning approaches and builds bridges between the active young generation and social institutions in order to actively shape social development. The incubator empowers young founders by supporting and training them, but also by obliging them to play a decisive role in shaping our society. Project leaders receive digital coaching through webinars and an active online community of founders and experts, as well as access to networks to connect with government bodies, companies and foundations.

Ireland: Laois Start Your Own Business Programmes

Laois Start Your Own Business Programmes cover the adaption of mainstream training and mentoring programmes into pilot programmes to meet the needs of groups traditionally excluded from enterprise opportunities. Identified groups include older people, ex-prisoners, migrants and asylum seekers. The programme includes the first of its kind delivered in an asylum seeker provision centre, as well as similar programmes delivered in several prisons. Each programme is adapted to the audience and addresses the different challenges and circumstances faced by each group. Trainers are also specifically selected and trained so as to be relatable for participants.

Keep coming back to the Portal to meet all of the shortlisted projects and don’t forget to follow all the updates to find out who wins in Graz at the SME Assembly 2018.

EEPA – The European Enterprise Promotion Awards, recognises outstanding projects from across Europe that are working to support entrepreneurs and small businesses across six different categories.

EEPA – The European Enterprise Promotion Awards, recognises outstanding projects from across Europe that are working to support entrepreneurs and small businesses across six different categories.

Today marks the introduction of the final EEPA category, “Responsible and Inclusive Entrepreneurship”. This category recognises initiatives that promote corporate social responsibility among small and medium-sized enterprises and entrepreneurship among disadvantaged groups such as the unemployed, legal migrants, disabled, or people from ethnic minorities.

Belgium: Z²O, zelfsturend en zelfstandig ondernemen

France: Initiative remarquable

Germany: ProjectTogether

Greece: Loutraki PLUS

Ireland: Laois Start Your Own Business Programmes

Italy: Premio ER.RSI Innovatori responsabili. Le imprese dell’Emilia-Romagna per l’Agenda 2030

Montenegro: Smart Start Montenegro – Hub for social entrepreneurship of civil society organizations (CSOs)

Portugal:The Re-food Movement

Serbia: Social Impact Award Serbia

Come back to Promoting Enterprise every week to discover the national winners across the other five EEPA categories: Promoting the entrepreneurial spirit, Investing in Entrepreneurial Skills, Improving the business environment, Supporting the internationalisation of business  and Supporting the Development of Green Markets and Resource Efficiency.

Want to know who will be judging the 2018 projects? Meet the EEPA 2018 Jury here on the Portal!

The European level of the EEPA competition closed last week on 3 July 2018. National coordinators have been submitting their top national projects for consideration by a European jury for the EEPA 2018 shortlist, and a total of 56 entries were received.

This year the national winners will be evaluated by a jury with members from different sectors, disciplines and backgrounds. The 2018 members can be found here on the News Portal.

2018 saw a total of 303 national projects submitted across 32 participating countries. Portugal achieved the highest ever recorded national total for EEPA with a spectacular 82 applicants to their national competition.

After the reinstating of the green category, EEPA 2018 will see projects competing across six different categories for 2018:

• Promoting the entrepreneurial spirit
• Investing in entrepreneurial skills
• Improving the business environment
• Supporting the internationalisation of business
• Supporting the development of green markets and resource efficiency
• Responsible and inclusive entrepreneurship

Promoting the Entrepreneurial Spirit (14 entries) was once again the category with the most applications closely followed by Investing in Entrepreneurial Skills (10 entries).

This year’s EEPA jury will meet in Brussels on 26 September 2018 to deliberate which national projects will make it onto the 2018 European shortlist. Keep coming back to the Promoting Enterprise News Portal for both the announcement of the shortlist and an introduction to all of the shortlisted projects by competition category.

Good luck to all of the national winners! Don’t forget to keep checking here for the 2018 shortlist announcement…

About the EEPA selection process

The competition has two stages. Applicants must first compete at national level to be eligible to compete at European level. For the national competition, each country selects two entries to be nominated for the European competition.

A shortlist of nominees will be chosen by a European jury. All nominees from the national and European competitions will be invited to attend the final awards ceremony. The ceremony recognises the winners for their efforts and gives them the opportunity to present themselves in a pan-European environment.

Past winners have shared their tips for how to prepare for an EEPA submission, and their application journeys and lessons. But what does it feel like to be announced the winner of an EEPA category after putting in so much hard work? How did our past winners feel when they were recognised as some of the best projects in Europe? Today our 2017 winners reflect on their winning moments and what it was like to win the award.

 “Of course it was a surprise! Within an impressive group of finalists which included investor programmes, incubators and accelerators with a long track record, we felt like the underdog. We don’t have a long track record yet, although we have enough data to have an evidence-based method to help innovators. But still we were the new kids on the block, with a crazy new kind of entrepreneurial programme, involving festivals. So for us, winning was an encouragement to keep going and support other regions to make festivals part of their innovations ecosystem.”

Innofest – Grand Jury Prize Winner 2017

“It was incredible! It was an amazing recognition and such a great source of motivation for us to continue our work! I later realised that winning and being identified in front of everyone was really important, because afterwards I was approached by several people who wanted to know more about the project. It was really interesting to be able to speak about our work with so many different people.”

ADIE – Responsible and inclusive entrepreneurship Winner 2017

“When we take part in awards of this kind we always want to win or, at least, be a nominee. Due to the time it takes to prepare all of the necessary documentation we rarely take part in these kinds of competitions. The last time we participated in something similar was in 2012 when we participated in an EU Award after being nominated by Austria. This time around, with EEPA, it was even better as not only were we nominated but ended up winning in our category!”

Internationalisation 2015 – 2020 – Supporting the Internationalisation of Business Winner 2017

“It got my heart racing! We arrived in Tallinn without knowing at all what would happen and for us it was a big surprise. It is an honour to receive this award and we want to share it with everybody who made it possible!”

Reempresa – Improving the business environment Winner 2017

“We really wanted to win the European prize, but just because we thought we were the best project didn’t mean that the jury would think the same thing. When Business Generator was announced as the winner, I had a pulse of 1000! Friends who have seen the video of us winning say that I look unmoved, but really I was shocked. Just hearing Sweden mentioned with our project was incredible, I was representing our country!”

Business Generator – Investing in entrepreneurial skills Winner 2017

“When you find out that you are shortlisted of course you start to think “what if…”, but we didn’t expect to win. We were really excited when we did win because it was a complete surprise!”

Enterprise Village – Promoting the entrepreneurial spirit Winner 2017

Would you like the chance to have a ‘winning moment’? Apply for EEPA 2018 before it is too late! Check your national deadlines and read more about past winners.

Watch all of the EEPA ‘winning moments’ and highlights from the SME Assembly 2017 here:

Immigrant entrepreneurs are   becoming a very important part of the economic landscape in many urban cities of the world contributing to the phenomenon of globalisation. More than ever, in the context of the refugee crisis, European city leaders and decision makers need pragmatic, relevant and practical advice to address the migrant integration challenges and develop effective migrant integration strategies to help utilise the potential of immigration.

Rotterdam Has a Model for Solution

The Rotterdam Business Case, founded in The Netherlands, provides help to struggling entrepreneurs. The pilot began in Rotterdam in 2012 to support entrepreneurs operating below the poverty line. The goal was simple; to help entrepreneurs help the economy! Or, in other words: “To increase income and economic sustainability by improving entrepreneurial skills and vision.” The pilot soon became a project – The Rotterdam Business Case – which since then has supported more than 800 entrepreneurs in the Rotterdam region to get their enterprises back on track. In November 2016 The Rotterdam Business Case was awarded a European Enterprise Promotion Award in the category ‘Responsible and Inclusive Entrepreneurship’.

Project Has Been Scaling Up

The concept is based on a tripartite cooperation between the University of Applied Sciences, the City of Rotterdam and a foundation made up of successful retired entrepreneurs (OKB). The retired entrepreneurs act as senior coaches for the struggling entrepreneurs by providing advice and mentoring to overcome obstacles and challenges. Their role is to encourage the struggling entrepreneur to regain control and help to draw up a re-start plan. The students from the University of Applied Sciences act as junior coaches and provide practical assistance for the re-start by streamlining/reorganising the administration, drawing up a cost-calculation, and drafting reports to plan out the various aspects of the re-start (business plan or acquisition plan). This successful cooperative approach is described with the slogan ‘Young and Old Is Gold’. One of the first results from scaling up is the start of a Finnish project in the City of Tampere. The City of Tampere, the University of Applied Sciences and Pirkanmaa Business Mentors, a local Business Mentor organisation, started a partnership to assist first time entrepreneurs using the Rotterdam Concept.

Rotterdam Business Case Implementation in Tampere

At the moment we have an ongoing pilot in Tampere based on the Rotterdam Business Case. Its objective is to develop services to promote and support migrant entrepreneurs, who are facing challenges in running a business. The pilot is based on studies that have shown that the challenges most often faced are lack of capital, inadequate Finnish language skills, competition, distrust from locals and lack of understanding of business legislation and marketing aspects of Finnish society. In our pilot we are aiming to create a mentoring process model. With help and smart advice from the Rotterdam team we are proceeding fast with service implementation. At the beginning of April, we were happy to host guests from Rotterdam in Tampere and share our experiences in the field. During the visit we were able to have productive discussions on the Business Case implementation process and share practical advice on building the foundation and partnerships for a better execution of the project.

Sausages Finland Ltd, our migrant entrepreneur case that produce raw sausages, are facing challenges with understanding the Finnish customer market. With the help of junior and senior mentors they are working on a marketing strategy in order to develop better engagement of current customers and find ways to reach new customers. We already have new immigrant entrepreneurs interested in participating in the programme, therefore we see a great potential and a positive outcome of the process development and project implementation. Very soon we are hoping to widen the potential target group and offer our services to Finnish entrepreneurs, as they have a need for similar services.

For more information on the Rotterdam Business Case implementation process in Tampere please contact ramona.bilmez@tampere.fi