This award, which aims to enhance the recognition and dissemination of projects and initiatives that promote active and healthy ageing in the Centre region, is promoted by CCDR Centro in collaboration with the Ageing@coimbra and AgeINfuture consortia.

The Webinar is organized by Università di Bologna in collaboration with: ART-ER, Better Incubation, Fa’ la cosa giusta, Fondazione CRT, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini, Inkubator Sežana, Politecnico di Torino.

The field of social entrepreneurship is various and complex. It includes multiple actors and it’s developing more and more. The webinar aims to give insights on this field, presenting recent research data about Europe and Italy. The data helps to depict a clearer situation, even if social entrepreneurship is still growing and constantly changing. After the first introductory contribution, the webinar focuses on specific cases and approaches which favour the development of social entrepreneurship. Specific approach to sustain social entrepreneurship are presented, such as the tight partnership of a public actor with social entrepreneurs and incubators, and policy recommendations on how to sustain inclusive incubation.

Afterwards, Italian and European actual cases of social enterprises are described and commented, in order to share with participants potentialities and criticalities of social entrepreneurship.

Agenda:

​Introduction by Unibo

Social entrepreneurship and social ecosystems – Paolo Landoni, Politecnico di Torino

Key regional stakeholders for social innovation and social entrepreneurship – Kristian Mancinone, Art-ER, Chiara Davalli, EBN / Better Incubation

CASES OF SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

• FabriQ (Italy) – Deborah Greco, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini

• Inkubator Sežana (Slovenia) – Dorijan Marsic, Director of Incubator Sezana

• Case to be defined – Zoe McDonagh, Fondazione CRT,

• Si parte dal Bosco (Italy) – Piero Brunod, Fa la cosa giusta Network

Q&A: check on Miro blackboard whether participants interact and read out loud what they wrote + open the discussion in the call for questions and comments.

Register to the event

Don’t worry! Recordings are now available online!

The series facilitated informal conversations between a diverse range of investors for impact and business support organisations with regards to pipeline building.

Switch Pitch with Seed Capital Bizkaia & Ship2B

In this episode of the Switch Pitch Series, Oscar Ugarte Gamboa, Seed Capital Bizkaia, and Xavier Pont Martin, Ship2B, explain how they work with incubators and accelerators – and how this collaboration can be improved to better support impact driven businesses.

Switch Pitch with Cartier Women’s Initiative

In this episode of the Switch Pitch Series, Wingee Sampaio, Cartier Women’s Initiative, explained how they work with incubators and accelerators – and how this collaboration can be improved to better support impact driven businesses.

Switch Pitch with Feelsgood Capital and Portus Buda Group FMC

In this episode of the Switch Pitch Series, Renata Brkic, FeelsGood Capital, and Elemér Eszter, Portus Buda Group FMC, explained how they work with incubators and accelerators – and how this collaboration can be improved to better support impact driven businesses.

Switch Pitch with World Startup

In this episode of the Switch Pitch Series, Jan Verkooijen, World Startup, explained how they work with incubators and accelerators – and how this collaboration can be improved to better support impact driven businesses.

Switch Pitch with INCO

In this episode of the Switch Pitch Series, Jean Michel Lecuyer, INCO, explained how they work with incubators and accelerators – and how this collaboration can be improved to better support impact driven businesses.

Switch Pitch with FASE

In this episode of the Switch Pitch Series, Markus Freiburg, FASE, explain how they work with incubators and accelerators – and how this collaboration can be improved to better support impact driven businesses.

Back in October, over 80 international business support experts, thought leaders, and innovation practitioners gathered in Lipica, Slovenia, to explore the European innovation ecosystem’s untapped potential in becoming more inclusive and diverse and how to re-strategize, upskill and expand business support services to service a new generation of impactful start-ups. It was co-hosted by EU|BIC Inkubator Sežana and was powered by Better Incubation, a project funded by the European Union Programme for Employment and Social Innovation.

Here is a 3-minute video to take us back to those incredible days of networking and peer learning around impact driven and inclusive incubation practices, tools and strategies. Enjoy!

Don’t forget that you can still access all experts’ presentations and watch the event pictures here.

The Rise Challenge encourages applicants to create an individual project that demonstrates their talents and benefits their communities, and peer review other applicants’ projects, among other activities.

After applicants complete the Rise Challenge, Rise selects up to 500 Finalists to advance to “Finalist Days,” where they demonstrate their motivations, problem-solving abilities, and teamwork skills in an innovative interview format.

From the 500 Finalists, Rise selects up to 100 Global Winners to receive various benefits as they work to serve others.

The program starts at ages 15–17 and offers a lifetime of benefits including scholarships, mentorship, access to career development opportunities, funding, and more as Global Winners work toward solving humanity’s most pressing problems. Everyone who applies joins a global community of leaders and gains access to free online courses and opportunities from our partners around the world.

The program is personalized and flexible, tailored to Global Winners’ needs as they evolve over time. We aim to provide Global Winners with individualized support to empower them to achieve their goals while they work to serve others throughout their lives.

Applicants for the 2023 cohort must be between the ages of 15 and 17 as of July 1, 2023, meaning they are born on or between July 2, 2005 and July 1, 2008.

It does not matter what country they live in, background they come from, or academic experience they have. Whether they are interested in science, innovation, technology, art, policy, community organizing, or any other discipline—we want to hear from them.

Rise is a program that finds brilliant people who need opportunity and supports them as they work to serve others. We understand that economic barriers are not the only challenges that keep brilliant people from serving others throughout their lives.

Discover more about the Rise Challenge and apply now!

Rise is an initiative of EVPA member Schmidt Futures with the Rhodes Trust

• Better Incubation final event at EVPA Annual Conference 2022
• Better Incubation latest publications: the Better Incubation Roadmap, the Insights Paper, and the Final Policy Recommendations – including the 15 regional manifestos summarising the key outcomes of the regional policy workshops that took place in September and October 2022 in 14 European countries.
• Better Incubation highlights for the 5 target groups of underrepresented entrepreneurs: factsheets, videos and training modules.

Find out more information about Better Incubation news by reading the newsletter here: Better Incubation Newsletter 8_December 2022

This time, with the support of DG EMPL, we focussed the conversation on the available funding instruments for social economy and the role the National and European Competence Centres for Social Innovation have in Europe to promote and enable impact-driven innovation.

00_Better Incubation SEAP Webinar 2_13 December 2022_Chiara Davalli

Dana Verbal, DG EMPL, provided a comprehensive overview of the available funding programmes. She touched upon the following ones: ESF+, ERDF, InvestEU and the Social Inclusive Finance Technical Assistance. She highlighted relevant funding streams for BSOs and incubators.

She also mentioned the Social Economy Gateway, that as of Summer 2023, will act as the main information point about EU funding programmes, EU policy, guidance documents and studies, facts and figures, best practice examples, links to relevant networks and organisations and capacity building resources such as webinars. It will also include country pages to provide country specific information.

01_2022-12-13 SEAP_ Better incubation webinar_Dana VERBAL OK

Risto Ravio, DG EMPL, presented the comprehensive framework for social innovation defined by ESF+ and explained the role the national competence centres for social innovation will have in promoting and enabling social innovation across Europe. As also mentioned in the previous presentation, many funding programmes for social economy and social innovation are run by regional and national managing authorities, so it is important to create the right environment to generate appropriate impact. As European Member States present different maturity levels in this regard, 6 international consortia have been funded for the period 2021-2023 to support the creation of the national cometence centres through international collaboration, mutual learningn aand capacity building.

02_Social Innovation competence centres 13 Dec 2022_Risto Ravio

The webinar closed with a presentation dedicated to FUSE project, one of the 6 networks of national competence centres for social innovation covering the following countries: Portugal, Ireland, Bulgaria and Cyprus.

Grainne Smith, GENIO Ireland, presented the consortium and briefly showed where the different countries are in the definition of the national blue prints/agendas for social innovation

03_FUSE overview__IR PT_better incubation WK_13.12.2022_Grainne Smith

If you missed the webinar, you can watch the recordings here.

During the closing session of the final event of Better Incubation at the EVPA Annual Conference 2022, we asked the Better Incubation project managers of IHUB, EVPA and EBN to summarise their project experience in one word.

Lucia Radu, IHUB, highlighted the intense capacity building programme offered by Better Incubation through the Communities of Practice and the online Training Courses on Social Entrepreneurship, Inclusive Etrepreneurship and Impact Management and Measurement. More than a training opportunity, rather a dedicated space for BSOs to learn from peers and other relevant stakeholders committed to promote and support entrepreneurship as an opportunity for all in society – especially among the so-called Underrepresented and Vulnerable Groups.

Valeria Balzarini, EVPA, used the word perspective to explain how EVPA and its members used the Better Incubation project to rethink their approach to Underrepresented Entrepreneurs (UREs), this by connecting and working with BSOs and UREs directly.

Chiara Davalli, EBN, stressed the importance of Networks, of a Network of Networks like Better Incubation to achieve so many important results over a relatively short period of 2 years, where more than 133 entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs from URGs received incubation programmes from 21 organisations in 14 European countries. EBN, IHUB and EVPA, with the support and advice of Caritas Europa, ENSIE, EMES, Cooperatives Europe, managed to mobilise the European entrepreneurial ecosystem thanks to the active engagement of their members (EU|BICs, Impact Hubs and invesotrs for impact) who took this opportunity to rethink their programmes, their organisations and their ecosystems in a more inclusive and impact-driven way.

The event started in the morning with an EU Policy Workshop aimed at sharing and validating Better Incubation Policy Recommendations with policymakers, researchers, BSOs, investors for impact, regional development agencies, national agencies for social innovation and pan-European networks like Eurocities and Euclid. An interactive workshop where 25+ participants where asked to discuss the 6 issues identified by the project as the ones the entrepreneural ecosystem(s) in Europe need to consider and address to boost social and inclusive entrepreneurship in Europe.

Some of these policy recommendations were taken into account by Mrs Brigitte Fellahi-Brugneau, Head of Unit at DG Employment,  that during the afternoon session shared some reflections from the policymakers’ point of view on how Better Incubation contributed to promote and support social and inclusive entrepreneurship in Europe, by leveraging the knowledge, the competencies, the networks of mainstream business support organisations.

Then it was the turn of the Directors and Managers representing EVPA, IHUB and EBN who shared some insights on the relevance of the Better Incubation programme for their communities.

They all agreed that as organisations, the project offered a unique opportunity to grow knowledge, tools and methodologies for BSOs and investors for impact willing to broaden their scope to social and inclusive entrepreneurship. Moreover, Better Incubation enabled the three networks to involve their members and let them cooperate directly, this leading to new partnerships, opportunities and wider impact.

The event continued with the VOICES of Better Incubation: seven “ah-ah moments” telling the stories of EU|BICs, Impact Hubs, Investors for Impact and other stakeholders involved in the project activities. Regional policy workshops’ organisers, inclusive incubation programmes managers, CoPs experts and facilitators, trainings and networking events’ participants, investors mentoring winners of the Better Incubation Contest, Scaling Impact. These the perspectives represented in this crowded and emotional panel, a conversation that showed how Better Incubation successfully managed to kick-start an ecosystemic change in the incubation ecosystem.

Last but not least, the winners of the Better Incubation Contest were on stage to share how the scaling programme of Better Incubation project is helping them understanding and moving the first steps into new markets in Europe.

Believe, dare, learn and amplify your impact without giving up! This in a nutshell their advice to would-be entrepreneurs!

It was a great conclusion of two years of intense project activities. You can still watch the Better Incubation Project Finale recordings online!

The Commission calls on Member States to encourage mainstream business incubators to extend their support to social economy entities, to improve business investment readiness support opportunities. The ‘Better Incubator’ pilot launched by the European Commission can serve as inspiration’ .

Better Incubation aims to enhance the inclusiveness of BSOs by stimulating a wider cultural change in the incubation ecosystem, therefore involving regional and EU stakeholders (investors, policymakers, social actors, BSOs) that can contribute to this paradigm shift.

After 2 years of project activities, it is time to share key learnings on how to boost the promotion and support of impact-driven and inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems in Europe and beyond.

Organised in the framework of the EVPA Annual Conference 2022,  the session “Better Incubation: Project Finale | Towards an impact-driven and inclusive approach to innovative entrepreneurship in Europe” is structured in 4 key moments:

1. How BSOs can contribute to the implementation of the Social Economy Action Plan? Brigitte Fellahi-Brognaux, Head of Unit, European Commission DG EMPL
2. Beyond Better Incubation – Partner Networks’ reflections on the way forward A conversation with Tatiana Glad, IHUB; Roberta Bosurgi, EVPA ; Laura Lecci, EBN
3. “Voices of Better Incubation” We’ll hear different experiences of Better Incubation. What did the programme offer to their orgnisations, their territories and communities? What are the plans for the future?
4. Scaling Impact. Meet the Winners of the Better Incubation Contest 2022. We’ll discover the entrepreneurial journey of the three finalists of the Better Incubation Contest 2022| Scaling Impact. Their stories, their plans, their impact

The session starts at 14.30 CET and it is going to be live streamed on Better Incubation Twitter account, LinkedIn page and EBN YouTube Channel. 

AGENDA

Room Orangerie, on the 2nd floor & Live Streaming

Techcamp showcased experiences and strategies and co-developed innovation support programs to give the European innovation ecosystem a competitive advantage by embracing diversity and an impact-driven approach to supporting (tech) entrepreneurship.

It was held on the 19^th and 20^th of October in Lipica, Slovenia, to explore the European innovation ecosystem’s untapped potential in becoming more inclusive and diverse and how to re-strategize, upskill and expand business support services to service a new generation of impactful start-ups. It was co-hosted by EU|BIC Inkubator Sežana and was powered by Better Incubation, a project funded by the European Union Programme for Employment and Social Innovation.

Inkubator Sežana is one of our quality-certified EU|BICS who decided to join the Better Incubation project. They quickly became an example for the community by designing a successful and effective incubation support programme for hearing-impaired entrepreneurs. Their motivation and success, as well as the celebration of their 30^th anniversary, are one of the sources of inspiration that brought the EBN Techcamp to Lipica.

The EBN Techcamp is the second of our yearly events and the one that most showcases methodologies, practices, techniques, and tools that the community can bring back to their country and region to better support entrepreneurial innovation. This year, our focus on impact-driven and inclusive entrepreneurship is in large part because we know the challenges the community is facing. We wanted to empower them with the tools that can bring long-lasting resolutions – by increasing the pool of entrepreneurs, diversifying the type of companies they support, and more completely investing in their region’s (sustainable and social) economic development.

Laura Lecci, CEO at EBN

As remarked by the EC and the OECD, inclusive entrepreneurship is an integral part of growth. A widespread business creation by people of all groups helps generate jobs and combat social and financial exclusion while stimulating economic growth. Evidence shows that women, youth, seniors, immigrants, and people with disabilities are often underrepresented in the entrepreneurial space and, on average, less likely to succeed in creating high-growth firms due to a lack of networks, and access to finance, and less adequate ways to gain skills needed grow a company. At the same time, social enterprises are longstanding agents of inclusive growth and have proved remarkably resilient in the face of economic adversity. By design, social enterprises address socioeconomic challenges in innovative ways and engage citizens to become part of the solution.

Over 8 parallel deep-dive sessions, the 2022 EBN Techcamp offered EU|BICs, and BSOs a space to share, debate, and test practices, methods and tools for impact-driven and inclusive entrepreneurship promotion and support. Some of them resulted from the involvement of EBN and IHUB members in 21 Better Incubation pilots that led to new inclusive incubation programmes that involved more than 130 entrepreneurs over 6 months. Tools, methods, and recommendations have been shared during the Techcamp, and are also available in the Better Incubation Toolkit, the Better Incubation Collection of Best Practices, the Inspirational Videos, and the upcoming Better Incubation Insights Paper (focus on programmatic level) and the Better Incubation Roadmap (focus on organizational level).

Photos by Jan Antonac from VSS Sežana

There is evidence that business incubators and business accelerators can be effective supports for new and growing businesses, and evaluations suggest similar results can be achieved in business incubators that focus on supporting entrepreneurs from underrepresented and disadvantaged groups. The keys to success for these initiatives include offering strong preincubation services, building strong linkages with mainstream business support providers and investors, delivering support in flexible modules, and ensuring incubator staff is trained to support the targeted entrepreneurs.

This year’s EBN Techcamp empowered its participants to support a new generation of impactful tech start-ups – companies that are both profitable and work to improve society, operating ‘’double bottom line’’ business models – and to leverage diversity and inclusion and become relevant, competitive, and gain an advantage.

Cristina Fanjul, President of EBN

The event counted on the contribution of many local and international speakers who shared their experiences and best practices for innovation support. Speakers included: Dr. Aida Kamišalić Latifić, the secretary of state at the Slovenian Ministry of Digital Transformation, and David Škabar, Mayor of Sežana, who spoke of the importance of innovation and digitalization in Slovenia for its future; Cristina Fanjul, EBN President, Dorijan Maršič, Director at Inkubator Sežana, both addressing the importance of increased inclusivity for the future of European innovation and sharing their personal experience in the subject; and Tobias Temmen, Venture Partner at Kellogg-WHU, Stanford Change Labs, Andreja Jaklič, Professor at the University of Ljubljana – Faculty of Social Science, and Flora Rosenow, Global Brand Strategy & Communication for Impact expert, who lead workshops on the creation of incubation modules, guaranteeing its societal value from innovation ecosystems, and measuring and communicating its value to others – respectively.

Better Incubation is a joint initiative of EBN, Impact Hub and EVPA, funded by the European Union, to kickstart an “eco-systemic” change by bringing incubation and business support services closer to society as a whole and to promote entrepreneurship and self-employment as means to create jobs, develop skills, and give the unemployed and vulnerable an opportunity to fully participate in the economy and improve the inclusivity of our societies (www.betterincubation.eu)

Laura Lecci CEO of EBN, Dorijan Maršič, EU|BIC Sežana Inkubator Director, David Škabar, Mayor of Sežana and Cristina Fanjul, EBN President and EU|BIC CEEI Asturias Director, were in charge of kicking off these days.

During these 48h there was time to talk about innovation, impact, ecosystems, sustainable development goals, inclusion of innovative entrepreneurs, etc. and to reflect on this.

SESSIONS

Chapter 1: Why EU|BICs and other BSOs should consider promoting and supporting social and inclusive entrepreneurship in their regional ecosystems?

• Insights 1 | Keynote From Vision to Execution:  Leading Impact Management: led by Tobias Temmen, Venture Partner (Kellogg-WHU, Stanford Change Labs). ““A change in purpose changes a system profoundly, even if every element and interconnection remain the same,” Tobias provides a practical perspective on how thinking in systems is critical when reconsidering our incubation models”
• Solution Session 2 | Deep Dive 1: The human imperative. From vertical to transversal approach to impact driven innovation): led by Ramy Boujawdeh, EU|BIC Berytech Chief Operating Officer with Krystel Khalil and EU|BIC Berytech Programs Director and Lara Elkhoury EU|BIC Berytech Deputy Programme Director. Expect to learn more about how technology, innovation, and society function in tandem, and how your organisation can re-strategize for the change happening around us.
• Solution Session 2 | Deep Dive 2: Tech For Good. An ecosystemic approach to impact-driven innovation: led by Francisco Pizarro Escribano, EU|BIC Fundecyt PCTEX Business Development Manager. FundecytPCTEX presented the regional ecosystem that has been set up to promote and support impact-driven entrepreneurship and social innovation in Extremadura. Introducing two concrete tools, Francisco Pizarro, will focus on the importance of identifying the right stakeholders and establishing a new service portfolio

Chapter 2: What is needed for EU|BICs to enable change and enter the future of innovation support?

• Insights 2 | Keynote: The value(s) of the Sustainable Development Goals led by Prof. Dr. Andreja Jaklič, Chair of International Relations at University of Ljubljana Faculty of Social Sciences. Shared reflections on how the UN SDGs contribute to close societal and environmental challenges and bring value to local and regional ecosystems. By sharing good practices from the CEE region, she will demonstrate how the SDG framework contributes to value creation.
• Solution Session 3 | Deep Dive 1: Inclusive approaches to innovative entrepreneurship. Designing Inclusive Incubation Programmes led by Dorijan Maršič, EU|BIC Sežana Inkubator Dorector Ludovica Andrialemirovason, EU|BIC Laval Mayenne Technopole Project Manager and Desislava Dimitrova, EU|BIC INNOBRIDGE – Ruse CCI.
• Solution Sessions 3 | Deep Dive 2: “People-Planet-Profit” / “Society-Environment-Economy”. Incubation programmes boosting Double/Triple bottom line lead by Simone Ritzer, Wageningen Dialogues Program Leader at Wageningen University / Representing EU|BIC StartHub. A dynamic session hosted by Simone Ritzer let us explore ways to support impactful innovation, boosting the ‘triple bottom line’ among start-ups.

Chapter 3: How to enable practitioners and what frameworks, programmes and financial instruments are available for BSOs and EU|BICs?

• Insights 3 | Keynote Communicating Impact: led by Flora Rosenow, Global Consultant Brand Strategy and Communication. As stated in the Better Incubation Roadmap “All incubators should communicate with the external ecosystem to promote their organisations and their end-users. The messages your incubator sends to other stakeholders should be consistent with your organisational culture and mission”.
• Solution Session 4 | Deep Dive 1: Social Value Proposition and IMM – More Than a Programme. A Strategy!, led by Martina Muggiri, EU|BIC Candidate SocialFare Startup Program Manager   Matteo Lupetti, EU|BIC Candidate SocialFare Social Innovation Developer. Better understand the meaning of “social impact” and how it is embedded in their acceleration programmes. Looking at the case-study of “UnoBravo” they debated acceleration methods, and we will reflect on the role international networks like EBN can support the scaling of impact driven ventures.
• Solution Session 4 | Deep Dive 2: Social Value Proposition and IMM – Must-have for impact-driven ventures led by Selcen Kutku, acube | avanzi co-head and  manager. They first discovered the investment strategy of the Croatian-Slovenian Social Impact Fund Feelsgood Capital. They  then saw what role incubators can play bridging investees and investors for impact by listening to the methodology developed by a|cube, the incubator and accelerator of the Italian group Avanzi – Sostenibilità per Azioni.
• Solution Session 5 | Deep Dive 1: How can creative industries generate impact and address today’s societal challenges? led by Dr Eleanor Browne, Coventry University Social Enterprise CIC (CUSE) Managing Director Mariama Njie, Coventry University Social Enterprise CIC (CUSE) Social Enterprise Programme Manager. In an interactive workshop, CUSE shared insights on a fashion incubation programme recently run in Africa.
• Solution Session 5 | Deep Dive 2: Incubation services for Migrants and Refugees led by Maria Clarissa Pierobon, EU|BIC ITC Canarias Project Manager They saw with ITC Canarias how the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme can offer a concrete framework to support Ukrainian Refugees. During this session also Fela Kinse CEO of Salubata was presenting his business idea and sharing with the audience the difficulties he had to face as a Nigerian immigrant in France.

Check Techcamp Pictures

You can check here the photos and use them in social networks by naming Jan Antonac from VSS Sežana, and also de presentations from our speakers.

And here is a short video with highlights from the event:

They speak about us

https://inkubator.si/ebn-techcamp/ 

https://trentinosviluppo.it/it/ELE0016836/trentino-sviluppo-in-slovenia-al-techcamp-di-ebn

https://us18.campaign-archive.com/?u=0537d5810fe70e3a2fcd44a39&id=9048527708

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/selcen-kutku-picozzi-14940230_its-been-two-wonderful-days-full-of-questioning-activity-6990387423146848256-kMoN/?trk=public_profile_like_view&originalSubdomain=it 

https://www.art-er.it/2022/10/ebn-tech-camp-art-er-partecipera-alledizione-2022-del-network-europeo-di-incubatori-e-acceleratori/

https://www.tepsa.eu/prof-dr-andreja-jaklic-opened-the-second-day-of-the-ebn-techcamp-2022-cir-slovenia/

This Toolkit is a comprehensive collection of handson tools and methodologies for business support organisations aiming to make their incubation and other business support programmes more inclusive and accessible. The Toolkit is based on the experience and exchange among members of the Communities of Practice of the Better Incubation initiative.

It invites managers and contributors to incubation and other business support services to an honest analysis of their practices and gives them tools to go beyond the usual suspects as participants in their programmes.

Being based on the experiences of the inclusive pilot programmes run within the Better Incubation framework, it is not an exhaustive list but offers itself as a starting point for all business support organisations to go beyond the status quo, i.e., mainstream entrepreneurship. This pilot has been running in many European countries: Spain, Portugal, United Kindom, France, Luxemburg, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Italt, Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey.

How to use the Toolkit

The Toolkit is organised in line with the common steps of designing and running a business support
programme. You can easily navigate these different steps below and jump directly to where you are at, or you can read from beginning to end to get a better grasp of the many facets and perspectives when it comes to inclusion and accessibility in incubation and business support. For each step, different tools are listed and you can pick out what best fits your reality.

Speaking of the steps of designing and implementing a business support programme: one important suggestion this Toolkit makes is to add step 2: Removing barriers to processes of developing and running business support programmes. Transforming your spaces and offerings to be more inclusive is not a one-time moment. It needs to happen throughout the programme cycle. However, having accessibility as a step just like “designing the programme” or “selecting participants” highlights the importance of gaining awareness about barriers that people may face in accessing programmes. This approach resonates with a wider mission of the Better Incubation project of placing incubators as catalysts in the entrepreneurship ecosystems and thus allowing them to go beyond their intermediary role.

The 5 Groups in Focus

Woman

The European business and entrepreneurship ecosystem is far from being diverse and inclusive. According to the OECD report , women were half as likely as men to be self-employed , while the share of women who started their own business only increased by 2%. This gap can be explained by deep structural imbalances against female business founders, such as lack of access to finance, low opportunity perception regarding entrepreneurship among women, lack of role models or competing demands on time, with a double burden on home and work responsibilities for women.

Migrants and Refugees

In 2020, the number of refugees and asylum seekers in Europe increased to an unprecedented 23 million . Entrepreneurship therefore represents a great opportunity for refugees and other migrants to rebuild their lives and contribute to the economy and society in their new home country. Relevant business support services can help address these challenges, but it needs to be accompanied by a change of mindset in the sector to better reflect on the real needs of migrant entrepreneurs.

Youth

Youth unemployment represents one of the major social and economic challenges in Europe, with more than 16.5% of them being unemployed in 2018 . In response to the challenges the youth encounters when searching for jobs, entrepreneurship offers an alternative pathway to economic self-sufficiency. Critical success conditions can be provided by training and incubation programmes targeted at the youth to nurture their entrepreneurial attitudes and skills.

Seniors

With the ongoing demographic change and the ageing population in Europe, supporting entrepreneurial skills and becoming self-employed could be considered as innovative ways for middle-aged group workers to continue their professional activity . These include difficulties with mastering digital skills, health issues or social isolation. These demographic changes also affect business incubation support services because a new growing client group is emerging.

People with disabilities

The complexity of this group stems from the fact that disabilities are extremely diverse and are not fixed characteristic of individuals . People with disabilities face many barriers in the labour market, and employer discrimination is frequently reported.

Tools for…

1. Desinging inclusive support programmes
   1. Empathy interviews
   2. Co-creation with organisations in the field
   3. Personas
   4. Flexible modular design
2. Removing barriers
   1. Analyse application data
   2. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
   3. Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Training
3. Scouting for and selecting diverse participants
   1. Community Mapping
   2. Channels Mapping
   3. Equity-informed selection
4. Delivering the right programme support
   1. Needs assessement
   2. Business model basics
   3. Safer space
   4. Onion principle and confidence building
5. Connecting participans to supportive people
   1. Intentional mentor matching
   2. Purposeful hosting
   3. Peer-to-peer support
6. Facilitating access to capital
   1. Map funding possibilities
   2. Pitch training
   3. Offer funding
7. Manageing impact
   1. Impact mesurement platform
   2. Exit interviews with participants
   3. Competence framework

You can find more informaton HERE