It is a 3-year project, which started on the 1st of August in 2019. Inter Ventures has partners from 5 European border regions - Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain, and Lithuania, representing various stages of evolution of SME ecosystems, from occasional cross-border cooperation through more structured networking to international clusterization.
During the whole project, implementation partners constantly shared their experiences and learned jointly, aiming to change the policy framework in their region. Regional stakeholders were also intensively involved in the process through Meetings and Webinars including training, brainstorm sessions, and online workshops.
By the end of 2021 of the Inter Ventures project, besides participating in online partner meetings (thematic study visits) and webinars, the project partners have collected and analyzed Good Practices. 13 Good Practices were combined in the 1st Infographic, which revealed the main details about the Project Partners and the SMEs’ situation in each region. You can find the infographic here - www.interregeurope.eu/interventures/library/
Besides, a Situation Analysis Report was published by each Project Partner, too. It was a great tool for the project partners to better understand what is the current situation with SMEs internationalization in their region. The completed Situation Analysis Reports were used as a basis for Action Plans by each region targeting desired improvements of the 5 selected regional and national policy instruments for the enhanced internationalization of SMEs. You can find brief information about each partner’s action plan below:
HUNGARY (PANNON EGTC, Hungary – Croatia)
ACTION 1: Amended regional cross-border support scheme - this action expands the scope of the PI by a new component that provides support for SMEs to prepare a “preparedness test”, draft a development plan and provide financial assistance to implement the key elements of the plan.
LITHUANIA (Klaipeda ID, Klaipėda City Municipality)
ACTION 1: Acceleration services for startups in creative industries, blue economy, and industry digitalization - this action aims to accelerate services for startups. There is a great potential for developing digital innovations in creative industries, the blue economy, and even traditional businesses. Digital innovations by nature are highly scalable and can be introduced to the global market independently where such innovation was created.
ITALY (Unioncamere Lombardia)
ACTION 1: Digitalisation can enhance SMEs’ internationalization - this action introduce governance models and support schemes for the SME internationalization Specific programs for SMEs digital international development, aimed at the creation of:
- specific regional measures;
- a set of services and activities for the support of local companies;
- participation in initiatives aimed at starting up and/or consolidating in a structured way their own business in foreign markets through the development and/or consolidation of the presence and capacity for action of SMEs.
SPAIN: (European Business and Innovation Centre of Burgos (CEEI-Burgos and Society for the development of the province of Burgos (SODEBUR)
ACTION 1: Review, improvement, and proposal of existing and new training programmes on internationalization aiming at Burgos rural SMEs - this action improves the capacities of the staff working on rural SMEs to promote and facilitate the participation of these companies in internationalisation processes. These training programmes will be mainly dedicated to those potential companies “starting” or with the “intention” to internationalise.
ACTION 2: Review and improvement of available financial instruments to promote internationalisation among rural companies in the province of Burgos - this action review the available financial instruments for the rural companies in the province of Burgos to promote internationalisation.
POLAND (Rzeszow Regional Development Agency and Association of the Carpathian Euroregion Poland)
ACTION 2: Young people working on their own - this action aims to improve the entrepreneurial competencies (in the form of training) of 48 professionally inactive young people aged 18-29 living in the Podkarpackie Region who have lost employment after March 1st, 2020. As well as provide grant non-refundable amounts + small amounts to cover business management costs to 40 people who will start a business by June 30, 2023.
We recommend watching the following video about each partner’s Action Plans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g1waxwSQsU
Partners gather online on the 2nd of December to prepare themselves for the next steps of INTER VENTURES in 2022. This year will be a key period in the lifetime of the project as the partnership will focus on the implementation of Action plans on a regional level.
