Interreg MINI EUROPE/sharing practices » Events

Final conference in Valencia

Veneto — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 16:27:42 +0000

The final conference of Mini Europe will take place on April 7th in Valencia (ADEIT / Plaza Virgen de la Paz, 3).

Partners, stakeholders and innovation practitioners will discuss together around the topic “Mainstreaming policies and funding growth SME’s in European Regions”

Click here to download the programme

Mini Europe – The 3rd Creative Workshop – Mainstreaming Good Practice – Manchester, 9th December 2010

North West England — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 14:59:43 +0000

Photos of the day are available to download and view here:
Manchester Photos 1
Manchester Photos 2
Manchester Photos 3

The Agenda and the presentations are available for download here:

AGENDA

Mini Europe Update & Background – Karin Maatje

North West of England Imports & Mainstreaming – Tameside MBC & Salford University

Women’s Enterprise in the NW of England – Ellie Kerr & Elaine Owen

Sustainability of Mainstreaming – Winnie Prins – Province of Flevoland

New Sub Regional Arrangements in the North West of England – Suzanne Blackledge, Tameside MBC

The 3rd Creative Workshop for Mini Europe was held in Manchester, in the North West of England on December 9th, 2010. In order to ensure that the aims of the project can be met and all the options for bringing the exchanges between regions to completion are considered, the focus of the Workshop was on Mainstreaming.

The Creative Workshop aimed to ensure that all partners understood what it means in practice, what the options for mainstreaming might be in their regions, and to help them consider ways in which they might make this happen.

A number of presenters throughout the morning gave an insight to how they are currently mainstreaming the good practices they are importing, the essential ingredients for enabling mainstreaming to take place, and some discussion around the levels of mainstreaming that might be considered.

In the afternoon, three individual Workshops discussed specifically the existing mainstreaming opportunities, barriers to mainstreaming, and possible solutions within the Good Practice themes of Enterprise, Cluster Development & Sector Growth, and Knowledge Transfer.

“Innovation & SMEs: European Best Practices” in Patras

Western Greece — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 14:36:59 +0000

MINI EUROPE in the “Forum for Regional Development 2010 – 13^th Money Show Patras” on 16 October 2010

The development and the innovation of SMEs within the Region of Western Greece constituted the central theme of the session “Innovation and Small-Medium Enterprises: European Best Practices” held on Saturday, October 16th, in the framework of the Forum of Regional Development 2010 – 13th Money Show Patras”. The session was organized by Patras Science Park (PSP) S.A. under the auspices of the transnational and interregional project MINI EUROPE.

During the session, the invited speakers presented successful European Best Practices suitable for the development of the SMEs within the Region of Western Greece, with special focus on the results and experiences of the best practices successfully implemented in other european regions as selected for exchange and implementation within the framework of the MINI EUROPE project.

Εnterpreneurs of the Region of Western Greece, young researchers and professors from local Universities and research institutions, as well as representatives of the local and regional authorities attended the session.

Chairman of the session was Dr. Chrysostomos Stylios, Regional Content Manager of the Project MINI EUROPE and Research & Development Consultant of Patras Science Park, who made a short introduction to the project Mini Europe, its scope and its achievements so far.

Picture 1: (from left to right) Mr. G. Mentzelopoulos, Mr. G.Tzovolos, Mr. N. Thomopoulos and Dr. Chr. Stylios

Then Mr. Gerasimos Mentzelopoulos, PSP General Director, presented Patras Science Park activities and its goals that could be summarized in the “promotion of innovative ideas and solutions that will help SMEs to be developed and become more competitive”.

Mr. Evaggelos Papadakis, Assist. Prof. at the University of Western Greece, analyzed the terms “social enterprise network” and “cluster”. As he explained, the social enterprise network stands somewhere in the middle of public and private enterprise, reminding what we used to call “association”. Referring to the clusters, he said that are groups of enterprises interconnected thematically and geographically in order to serve the same goals. As he mentioned during his presentation, clusters have been already established in Western Greece, such as the Watertech cluster -which resulted from the implementation of the project Regional Innovation Pole of Western Greece-, and the local community (companies, researchers, authorities and public) has been greatly benefited from them.

Ms. Eleni Arvaniti, PSP associate, presented i-creo, a programme successfully implemented since 2006 in Spain, in the Region of Valencia. The philosophy of i-creo is to create a flexible body of experts hired by the associations of every productive sector within a region in order to propose and promote innovation as a means of their upgrade. Ms Arvaniti highlighted that the tranfer and implementation of this best practice in the Region of Western Greece will boost local SMEs that have no other way to access innovation. Bodies that can participate and support the transfer of this best practice are the productive sectors, Chambers of Commerce, Regional Authorities, Research Institutions etc. and, as she explained, there is already a plan for the adoption of the i-creo practice in the area of Etoloakarnania with the collaboration of the local Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Nikolaos Thomopoulos, from the Managing Authority of the Region of Western Greece, made a presentation about the opportunities for funding SMEs through European projects and he referred to the experience gained by the implementation of another project LEAD ERA, explaining and proving that projects based on transnational collaborations can really function as driving forces for the development of local SMEs.

Afterwards, Mr. Aris Mamasioulas, from the Managing Authority of the Region of Western Greece as well, presented the prospects of enhancing innovation in the SMEs of the manufacturing sector within the Region of Western Greece.

The concluding speech was made by Mr. Georgios Tzovolos, PSP associate, who spoke about the project Mini Europe and about the best practices implemented in Europe for the transfer of Innovation to enterprises. During his speech he underlined that “the most crucial thing for an enterprise is to understand the importance of innovation and that without innovation enterprises cannot become competitive”.

Picture 2: Mr. G. Tzovolos presenting “Good Practices in transferring Innovation to enterprises, the Project Mini Europe”

Before the conclusion of the session, the speakers and the audience had a constructive discussion on the basis of questions concerning the adoption by the enterprises of the suggested for the Region of Western Greece best practices and the expression of reservations contribution the contribution of the regional authorities and institutions to this effort. The speakers ensured the entrepreneurs that local authorities have already expressed their interest in contributing to the efforts undertaken within the framework of Mini Europe leaning on the european experience with a view to increase the competitiveness of local SMEs.

Pictures 3 & 4: The stand of Patras Science Park in the Forum for Regional Development 2010

Mini Europe represented at a European Project Showcase Event in Liverpool

North West England — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 12:29:10 +0000

Mini Europe was officially showcased as a good example of transnational working in November in the city of Liverpool to partners across the North West Region. The event was hosted by the North West Development Agency and the Committee of the Regions Open Days .

Bob Pels, Mini Europe’s General Manager, from the province of Flevoland, and Russell Yates, Regional Content Manager for the North West of England, from Tameside MBC, were interviewed on stage in front of a regional delegation of stakeholders by Councillor Flo Clucas, Liverpool City Council, on their experiences of transnational working and the practices covered by Mini Europe. The discussion highlighted some of the current exchanges that the North West is involved with, including: the Summer Entrepreneur programme and Summer Design Office, both from Sweden; the Tameside Business Family; the Cluster Development work that the North West is doing with Mini Europe partners in Hungary and Romania; the North West’s good practices in supporting female entrepreneuship; the North West Universities Association’s work with Greece on the North West’s Higher Level Skills Partnership programme; and how these programmes are being mainstreamed into regional and local policies and frameworks.

The event was carried out to showcase a number of projects currently taking place in the North West of England region – many of which concern support for Enterprise and Innovation and may be of interest to Mini Europe Stakeholders. The presentations from the event including ERDF projects in the region currently offering support for High Growth Businesses, Business Support programmes delivered by the region’s universities and Tourism projects, can be viewed here.

Thematic Conference presentations

Észak-Alföld — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 09:25:01 +0000

You can download by clicking on the following links the pdf version of the Thematic Conference presentations, 27 September 2010.

Az alábbi linkekre kattintva letöltheti a szeptember 27-i debreceni Mini Europe „Sikeres vállalkozásfejlesztési Gyakorlatok az Európai Unióban és Magyarországon”című Konferencia prezentációit.

Karin Maatje – A Mini Europe projekt bemutatása

Fésüs László – Vállalkozások támogatása az Észak-Alföldi Operatív Program keretében

Dombi János – Vállalkozásokat támogató gazdaságfejlesztési programok Magyarországon

Horváth Anna – Női vállalkozókat támogató Európai Uniós és magyar programok, kezdeményezések

Prokisch József – Pályázati források felhasználása – egy észak-alföldi sikertörténet

Bálintné Papp Adrienn – Vállalkozásokat, vállalkozók innovatív tevékenységét támogató Európai Uniós programok

Phil Cowper – Vállalkozások támogatása Északnyugat-Angliában

Mini Europe: again in Debrecen

Észak-Alföld — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 09:29:08 +0000

Among the results and best practices Sweden with „Summer Entrepreneur” program can except significant interest. This program was developed by the Swedes during the last eight years in order to create micro-entreprises and mini-companies. The participations of the project are unemployed or vacationer young people who create summer job opportunities for themselves with formation of their own company. Based a canadian example Vasternorrland county was the iniciative of the program which kept important to prepare the young people for their own potential entrepreneurial future. Today more than 40 municipalities from the 13 regions exploit the opportunity in Sweden and each year 600-700 people participate in the programs.

North-West England participate in the Mini Europe project and have more good practices about supporting women’s business. The Tameside Business Family program aims to increase the number of start-up companies. The program is already very popular in the region, which previously had little tradition of entrepreneurship. In the frame of the program the experienced players of the business life help to the enquirer persons to set up their own businesses. The Business Family in 2009 won the Enterprising Britain Regional and Innovation Awards.

During the event, besides the international good practices, participants will get an overview about the EU programs, the Hungarian and regional funding systems designed for SMEs. An interesting Hungarian good practice will be introduced by one of Észak-Alföd region’s best performing clusters, about the use of international and national funds for SME and cluster development purposes.

Meghívó a „Sikeres vállalkozásfejlesztési gyakorlatok az Európai Unióban és Magyarországon” című konferenciára

Észak-Alföld — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 14:14:31 +0000

A konferencia során a résztvevők megismerkedhetnek a nők és a fiatalok vállalkozóvá válását elősegítő sikeres Európai Uniós és hazai gyakorlatokkal. A konferencia áttekintést nyújt továbbá a vállalkozások számára elérhető Európai Uniós, magyar és régiós fejlesztési forrásokról is.

A rendezvényre érkező angol, holland, svéd, olasz, spanyol, görög és román vállalkozásfejlesztéssel foglalkozó partnereinkkel a konferencia szünetében és az ebéd során lehetőség nyílik kapcsolatépítésre és partnerkeresésre.

A rendezvény

helyszíne: Kölcsey Központ (Debrecen, Hunyadi u. 1-3.), 405. szekcióterem (2. emelet)

időpontja: 2010. szeptember 27., 9:00-14:00

A rendezvényen való részvétel ingyenes, de regisztrációhoz kötött.

A konferencia programja a innen tölthető le.

A rendezvény során az előadások angol illetve magyar nyelven hangzanak el – szinkrontolmácsolást biztosítunk.

Részvételét, kérjük, az innen letölthető regisztrációs lap kitöltésével és a zsofia.munnich@eszakalfold.hu e-mail címre való visszaküldésével jelezze.

A regisztráció határideje: 2010. szeptember 20. 16.00 óra.

Amennyiben bármilyen kérdése lenne, kérem, keresse Münnich Zsófiát az 52/501-103-as telefonszámon, vagy a zsofia.munnich@eszakalfold.hu e-mail címen.

Presenting MiniEurope during “Innovation & Entrepreneurship Week”

Western Greece — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:23:08 +0000

Mini Europe project was presented during the annual event “Innovation & Entrepreneurship Week”, which took place at Patras Science Park premises from the 21st to the 25th of June 2010. A workshop devoted to Entrepreneurship and financial tools for SMEs was organized at Thursday 24^th June 2010 under Mini Europe auspices.

The main aspects of the workshop was the European program on supporting Research for SMES under the 7^th FP, the European program on Region of Knowledge and Eco-Innovation and the Human Resource Expertise. This particular workshop attracted the interest of people from Regional Knowledge Organizations (Universities and Research Centers), enterprises and representatives from the Technical Chamber of Greece, the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV), the Region of Western Greece and from the Chamber of Commerce have been invited to participate in the IEW.

Mr. George Tsovolos presented the scope, aims and the main activities of MiniEurope project, how this Interreg IVC Initiative could contribute towards the development of SMEs on the 8 cooperative European regions. Mini Europe project was presented to an audience consisted of local stakeholders, representatives of local and regional authorities, owners and staff of regional SMEs, researchers, experts and people interested to create their own business.

Mini Europe project is in accordance with the main aims of Patras Science Park to contribute significantly and continuously towards the development of the Western Greece region, by supporting the creation and growth of small, innovative and technologically advanced companies and by, at the same time, implementing research and developmental Greek as well as European and inter-regional projects in cooperation with regional partners within the European Union.

2nd Mini Europe Creative Workshop in Debrecen, Hungary

Észak-Alföld — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:19:53 +0000

The Mini Europe interregional project, which is funded by the INTERREG IVC programme of the European Union and implemented by the cooperating 8 European regions, aims to develop the SME sector. Entrepreneurs, development and local government experts, and university researchers of the partner regions attended the Mini Europe Creative Workshop, held in Debrecen, Hungary in June 2010. The three main themes of the event and the discussions were cluster development, women entrepreneurship and knowledge transfer.

Due to the good practice exchanges organized continuously in the frame of the project – which has a budget of 1,9 million Euros –, in the youngest region of the Netherlands, in Flevoland 50 young people will get the opportunity to start their own “enterprise” this summer, and even they get only a small amount of “scholarship”, participants will receive consultancy and a “start-up package” of business cards and useful folders. Flevoland, NW-England and Mid-Sweden representatives also had a meeting the day before the Creative Workshop where they have discussed their methods of supporting women entrepreneurs and started to draw up a common strategy. Észak-Alföld and other partners could join this initiative at the Creative Workshop roundtable discussion about women entrepreneurship.

Észak-Alföld region has a remarkable good practice in the field of cluster development – the approach of the hosting region’s cluster policy is mainly bottom-up, and supports enterprises already have the willingness of forming a cluster. Two different approaches of building a bridge between universities, knowledge institutions and enterprises have also been presented. Maramures region’s ADISS project encouraged university students, to get involved in the project of a local company, dealing with wastewater management, while Észak-Alföld region’s Technology Transfer Office supports the innovative ideas and projects of regional researchers.

Debrecenbe ér a Mini Europe

Észak-Alföld — Fri, 28 May 2010 07:50:22 +0000

Június 10-én újabb fontos állomásához érkezik a Mini Europe projekt, amely nyolc EU-tagállam nyolc régiójának összefogásával kis- és középvállalkozások fejlesztését és innovációs tevékenységét segíti már bevált ötletekkel és a nemzetközi partnerség eszközeivel. Kreatív Workshop színhelye lesz Debrecen az Észak-Alföldi Regionális Fejlesztési Ügynökség (ÉARFÜ) szervezésében. Az Európai Unió INTERREG IVC programjának projektjében érdekelt régiók – Máramaros (RO), Észak-Alföld (HU), Közép-Svédország (SE), Valencia (ES), Veneto (IT), Nyugat-Görögország (GR), Északnyugat-Anglia (UK) és Flevoland (NL) – képviselői három fontos témára, a klaszterekre, a női vállalkozókra és a tudástranszferre fókuszálnak a rendezvényen.

Az első témakörben a brit partnerrégió biogyógyászati klaszterének fejlődését elemzik. A női vállalkozókat leginkább foglalkoztató kérdésekről ugyancsak a britek ígérnek izgalmas előadást, a máramarosiak pedig várhatóan Debrecenben döntenek saját egyesületük létrehozásáról. A vállalkozások és a felsőoktatási intézmények közötti tudástranszferrel kapcsolatban a Debreceni Egyetem és a Nagybányai Egyetem képviselői ismertetik eredményeiket és terveiket. Valamennyi témához kapcsolódva óhatatlanul szó lesz a mindenkit érintő válságról. A Mini Europe partnerrégióknak meggyőződése, hogy a vállalkozói készségek fejlesztése mellett a talpon maradást és a fellendülést is segíti a 2011 augusztusában záruló projekt keretében a kkv-k számára létrejövő stabil innovációs infrastruktúra.

További jó hír, hogy a mostani Kreatív Workshopnak folytatása is lesz: 2010. szeptember 27-28-án ugyancsak Debrecenben találkoznak a projektben érdekelt európai régiók képviselői.

A Kreatív Workshop programja innen, regisztrációs lapja pedig innen tölthető le.