Asturias

The COPIE Policy Forum on "Entrepreneurship for All: Promoting inclusive growth in Europe through the European Structural Funds" took place on April 16-17, 2012 in Berlin. With a total number of 70 delegates from twelve EU countries and thirteen different European regions, this interactive and lively event proved to be an excellent forum for discussing the results of COPIE’s work.

Effective business support services are at the heart of regional entrepreneurship programmes. Member States and regions in Europe have established and financed a large number of support schemes for different sectors and for different stages in the entrepreneur’s itinerary.
These are mostly delivered by economic development agencies, specialised support organisations, chambers of commerce and craft, business associations, independent advisors or local authorities.

‘Joint action planning’ is one of the five designated thematic areas of collaboration within the COPIE partnership. Over a period of one year, delegates from Asturias, the Czech Republic, Flanders, Germany and Wallonia met four times to share experience in governing regional entrepreneurship systems. More specifically, discussions revolved around the four themes of ‘Developing a common vision’; ‘Agreeing an evaluation strategy’; ‘Building an integrated campaign’; and ‘Planning for a legacy’. Partners shared their individual regional policies and practices, and the group jointly worked towards identifying strengths and weaknesses as well as key criteria for success.