CENTRAL EUROPE Regional Innovation Ecosystems Network
Change is still needed to make the cities and regions in Central Europe better places to work and live. Daring young entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas could contribute considerably to this change. But they can’t. Factors such as a lack of an entrepreneurial culture and mind-set leading to a limited interest in entrepreneurship are hampering their efforts. There is also inadequate training to improve their skills and entrepreneurial competences and innovation in general is being hampered by the lingering effects of the historical east-west divide and the recent economic crisis through an underinvestment in R&D.
And yet, entrepreneurs must be empowered to create change; they “form the majority of business entities and are the biggest employers” in Central Europe. “It is important to provide, at regional level, the right mix of financial and non-financial support to assist entrepreneurs to create new firms.” "And this is our goal. By mid-2019, we will contribute to a change in the way entrepreneurs are inspired, trained and supported through a balanced package of strategies, actions plans, pilot actions, training, and tools to create new-type comprehensive regional innovation ecosystems in seven Central Europe regions. With our three-step logical project approach (Development – Implementation – Improvement), we want entrepreneurs and SMEs to benefit the most from what we do. But also their regions will benefit because from now on regional smart specialization strategies will be further used to develop novel technologies, and brilliant products and services for economic and social innovation.” The joint development of all outputs and a transnational network interlinking the regional ecosystems to improve international skills emphasize the project’s transnational character. At present, there is presumably no such state-of-the art innovative support scheme in Central Europe. “That is why everything that we do will be transferable for the benefit of others."