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

Download the ideas for mainstreaming here.

With funding from the Local Innovation Award, achieved by Tameside in 2010, the pilot will allow 30 young people the chance of starting a business in the summer holidays with coaching from local business people. The Summer Entrepreneur programme has been a huge success in Sweden and the programme has already been successfully transferred to the region of Flevoland in the Netherlands.

Tameside MBC hopes to become the UK agent for the Summer Entrepreneur programme in the UK and will encourage other Councils and organisations to consider setting up the programme in their areas.

Bill Greenhalgh from the North West Development Agency, highlighted the opportunities to partners available to them through working in partnership with the region. Representatives from Envirolink, BioNow, and Food North West, the Cluster Development Organisations in the NW of England engaged with cluster and sectoral support, met with the partners to offer their assistance.

Prior to the meeting, the Romanian and Hungarian delegates, as well as the representatives from Greece, were given a tour of the new Media City site in Salford Quays to set the scene for the day’s discussions and show what can be achieved in the longer term.

To download the presentation by Bill Greenhalgh, click here

To view the video of FoodNW, click here

The website for EnvirolinkNW is available here

The website for BioNow is available here

A Video Conference was held between the regions of the North West of England and Western Greece in November 2010 to discuss the UK’s Higher Level Skills Partnership (HLSP) good practice which is managed in the region by the North West Universities Association (NWUA).

Representatives of Patras Science Park and Patras University then visited the NWUA in December to speak with HLSP project managers in a number of sectors, including, Creative, Digital & ICT, Construction, Bio-medical, Energy & Environmental, to progress the exchange. Through a series of one to one discussions by the sector representatives, discussions of some of the initial barriers to implementation, exploring the regional infrastructure and funding options, and a visit to Manchester Metropolitan University, the Greek partners aim to implement a similar programme in their region.

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.

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.

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.

The Tameside Business Family is offered to the the Mini Europe partners as an area of Good Practice in stimulating Enterprise creation.

The Tameside Enterprise Strategy outlines the reasons for the creation of the Tameside Business Family.

The creation of the Tameside Business Familyhas assisted in creating a step change in attitudes towards Enterprise creation in the area, and brought the private sector together locally to act as a team, assisting new businesses with advice and support to enable them to grow.

The Mini Europe Creative Workshop will take place in the beginning of June 2010 in Debrecen, Hungary. Its focus will be on creative presentations and round table discussions which provide participants with the right blend of inspiration to progress the development of regional enterprises and business of the 8 Mini Europe partner regions and its stakeholders.

The three main themes of the event will cover different aspects of supporting innovation and entrepreneurship. During the morning, short presentations of various international speakers will be held about cluster development, women entrepreneurs and knowledge transfer in order to boost innovation. In the afternoon, round table discussions will be organized around these topics.

For more information, please contact Ms. Zsófia MÜNNICH (zsofia.munnich@eszakalfold.hu)

You can download the Programme by clicking here!