Fostering collaboration through mapping, analysing and interlinking of European Entrepreneurial Regions – Renewal phase

The European Entrepreneurial Regions project partnership aims to foster the development and implementation of concrete collaborative action plans that supports the development of practical collaboration between regions to help entrepreneurs scale across the Single Market. Strategic topic areas are identified, based on mapping, analysis and interlinking of EER labelled regions. In an initial phase, the project completes in-depth mappings of the regional entrepreneurial ecosystems. The objective of the in-depth mapping it to deepen the analysis and to collect additional evidence to:

• Develop a comprehensive map of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and diagnose the maturity of the ecosystem
• Update the SWOT analysis of the regional ecosystem and identify the strength and existing gaps
• Analyse the linkages within the ecosystem and in the context of cross-regional collaboration
• Analyse the challenges and opportunities connected with the horizontal and thematic synergies for potential cooperation

IDEA Consult has supported the project in two phases between December 2018 and June 2020, and July 2020 to December 2021.

The project initially counted ten European Entrepreneurial Regions Île-de-France (FR), Flanders (BE), North Brabant (NL), Catalonia (ES), Marche (IT), Lombardy (IT), Lower Austria (AT), Central Macedonia (GR), Western Greece (GR), and Northern and Western Region Ireland (IE) . In a second phase, eight new regions have joined the renewal phase of the project, namely Pomorskie (PL), Helsinki (FI), Valencia (ES), Gelderland (NL), Northern Ireland (UK), Malopolski (PL), Asturias (ES), and Navarra (ES).

Collaboration areas are extracted from the analysis and include both horizontal (network for start-up and scale-up support, and financing start-ups and scale-ups) and vertical areas which correspond to thematic priorities for the regions, including MedTech, Agri-food and Digital transition of industrial SMEs, Circular Economy, Social Innovation, among others. The collaboration areas are outlined in a so-called Scoping Note and are developed into actions in Action Plans through peer exchange. The project moves from Action Plans to initial actions including fostering collaboration and exchange through workshops, online meetings, peer learning, one-on-one exchanges, policy hack-a-thon, among others.

For further details on the project, please visit: https://ec.europa.eu/growth/smes/sme-strategy/regional-policies_en