The European Entrepreneurial Region Award 2017

Meeting of the ERRIN Innovationand Investment Working GroupBrussels, 18 January 2016

Marc KiwittEuropean Committee of the Regions

1. Key features

2. Impact and outlook

3. How to become an EER region?

1. Key features

The Committee of the Regions in a nutshell

The Committee of the Regions is the voice of regions and cities in the EU.

6 commissions covering the following policy areas: CIVEX: Citizenship, Governance, Institutional and External

Affairs

COTER: Territorial Cohesion Policy and EU Budget

ECON: Economic Policy ENVE: Environment, Climate Change and Energy

NAT: Natural Resources

SEDEC: Social Policy, Education, Employment, Research,

Culture

350 members: regional and local politicians from 28 EU Member States

About 50 opinions a year on EU legislation

Five CoR priorities for 2015-2020

Main objective of the EER award: Supporting SMEs and entrepreneurship by implementing the Small

Business Act for Europe (SBA) at local and regional level.

Small Business Act for Europe:

A set of 10 principles guiding the design and implementation of policies, adopted by the European Commission in June 2008:

1) Creating environments where entrepreneurs can thrive.

2) Second chance for entrepreneurs facing bankruptcy.

3) “Think Small First”.4) Make public administrations responsive to SME

needs.5) Facilitate SME‘s participating in public procurement.6) Facilitate SME‘s access to finance.7) Help SMEs benefit from the Single Market.8) Promote upgrading of skills and all forms of

innovation.9) Turn environmental challenges into opportunities.10) Support SMEs to benefit from the growth of

markets.

SBA review (2011): Particular focus on four priority areas:

1) Administrative burden reduction.2) Access to finance.3) Access to markets.4) Promoting entrepreneurship.

“SBA 2.0”? Integration of SME policy into the Single Market Strategy (October

2015) and into sectoral policies.

Current CoR themes in SME and entrepreneurship policy:

Improving the business environment: cutting red tape, better regulation.

Territorial dimension of SME policy: business life-cycle, multi-level governance.

Promoting an entrepreneurial spirit in EU cities and regions.

The EER in an inter-institutional setting:

European Parliament

SME Intergroup

Committee of the Regions

CoR BureauECON Commission

European Commission

DG GROW DG REGIO

European Economic and Social Committee

ECO Section

EU institutions present in the EER jury

“The EER Award is oriented toward the future: It identifies and

rewards regions with outstanding forward-looking entrepreneurial

visions.”

Luc Van den Brande, Vice-President of the Committee of the Regions and initiator of the EER award, 30

September 2013

One distinguishing feature of the EER:

“The EER winners have proven that regions can develop and implement

cutting-edge entrepreneurial strategies to deliver growth and jobs. They are

pioneers of entrepreneurship support at regional and local level.”

Elżbieta Bieńkowska, Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, 22 June 2015

An outside appraisal:

The EER jury: Jury Chair: CoR

President

Jury members: CoR Members

EU institutions

Social partners

EER winners of the current year: The EER 2016 label was awarded on 9 July 2015 to

Glasgow, Lombardy and Małopolska.

2. Impact

The EER award gives a strong political impetus to involve all relevant actors and governance levels in the design and implementation of an entrepreneurial strategy within a territory.

“For our region, the EER label has been the banner under which we

have rallied the key players of entrepreneurship and enterprise

creation."

Charlotte Peytavit, Regional Council ofNord-Pas de Calais (EER 2013).

The EER encourages regions to develop their strategy beyond their EER year and strengthens multi-level governance in the delivery of SME-friendly policies. 

The mayor of the town of Jumilla, Murcia Region (EER 2011), signing an “Entrepreneurial Municipality” agreement on 21 January 2014

The EER award serves as a European label of excellence for entrepreneurship policies that the awarded regions are successfully using as a communication tool during their award year and beyond.

EER on Portuguese TV news

EER trophy displayed in Belfast City Hall

EER branded cake

With eighteen awarded regions, the EER network has reached the critical mass necessary for fruitful cooperation and joint projects between EER regions.

Representatives of the EER regions meeting at the EER Five Years conference on 22 June 2015

Examples of good results achieved in past EER regions:

Kerry County, Ireland (EER 2011):

Junior Entrepreneur Programme: introduction of entrepreneurship in schools for pupils from 8 to 12 years.

In 2014, the Junior Entrepreneur Programme has been adopted nation-wide, with 5.000 pupils participating.

Nord-Pas de Calais (EER 2013):

HubHouses have been set up in all eight universities of the region to help students develop theirs plans to start a business.

Students are offered mentoring, as well as training in project management and related skills.

Over 125 projects and 32 new companies set up.

Helsinki-Uusimaa (EER 2012):

The NewCo Factory accelerates the creation of start-ups with growth potential.

Since its inception in 2013, the NewCo Factory has already served more than 1.000 entrepreneurs.

Its goal is to create 100 start-ups per year and 300-500 jobs within four years.

Flanders (EER 2014):

The Gazelle Leap programme provides intensive coaching and individual guidance to promising entrepreneurs, targeting businesses with high growth potential.

Target indicator: 1.200 businesses are expected to make the “gazelle leap” and grow by 20% in 2014 and 2015.

Lessons learned in fostering innovation in SMEs:

Change in stakeholder behaviour in SMEs from a "have to" to a "want to do" attitude towards innovation and R&D.

Importance of strong partnerships involving all relevant stakeholders from designing projects to monitoring results.

Need of a comprehensive approach integrating the entire innovation chain from research activities to commercialisation.

Added value of knowledge transfer both between research and businesses within a region and on an inter-regional level.

The dimensions of innovation

What/When Research Transfer Realization Marketing Process Product Organisation

Source: t33 elaboration on Oslo Manual Guidelines For Collecting And Interpreting Innovation Data

Innovation

Strengthening peer learning among EER winners:The EER review of 2014 has introduced as stronger component of peer

learning and peer assessment into the EER scheme. Representatives of past EER regions are invited to evaluation missions conducted in the territories that have completed their award year.

CoR President Markku Markkula (Helsinki-Uusimaa, EER 2012) and King‘s Commissioner Wim Van de Donk (North Brabant, EER 2014) during the evaluation mission to North Brabant

Thematic work of the EER network:Capitalising on the expertise of the EER regions in entrepreneurship and SME

support to contribute to the political work of the Committee of the Regions. One example:

Administrative and regulatory burden:

Consultation of the EER regions on ABRplus/REFIT (April 2014). Seminar "Cutting red tape for enterprises" organised with

Umbria (March 2015). Next steps: Technical seminar on better regulation for SMEs

(May 2016 tbc), external seminar of the CoR ECON commission “Smart Regulation and Smart Growth”, Styria (EER 2013), 3 November 2016.

3. How to become an EER region?

Who can become an EER region?

“The label is open to all EU territories below the level of the Member State that are endowed with competences at a political level […]. ”

“[…] Regions are defined in the broadest sense, including communities, autonomous communities, departments, Länder, provinces, counties, metropolitan areas, large cities, as well as cross-border territories with legal personality such as EGTCs and Euroregions.”

(CoR Bureau decision 4057/2014)

Inclusion of territories that are not yet among the top performers:

“Each applicant's budget, specific structural or territorial challenges and economic starting point shall be taken into account by the EER jury in order to ensure that the label remains open […] to those [territories] that, while currently lagging behind, are committed to implementing the changes necessary to develop their entrepreneurial potential.”

(CoR Bureau decision 4057/2014)

A reminder of the objective of the EER scheme:

“The present review of the EER scheme aims to […] emphasise the implementation of the Small Business Act for Europe (SBA) at regional and local level as a primary objective of the EER, taking into account policy initiatives linked to the SBA such as the Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan and the Green Action Plan for SMEs.”

“The EER scheme contributes to the implementation of the SBA principles at regional and local level through concrete and measurable actions that demonstrate an optimal use of EU and other public funds.”

(CoR Bureau decision 4057/2014)

Overview of the assessment criteria

Political vision and commitment: Focus on the SBA, strong and credible political commitment, clear demonstration of added value of the EER label?

Multi-level governance, partnership, and cooperation: Involvement of the local (and national?) level, stakeholders, cooperation with other (EER) regions?

Delivery: Actions going beyond existing policies, indicators, monitoring mechanism, efficient use of funds?

Communication: Communication plan with high-level actions, target groups, EU and CoR visibility, planned use of the EER label?

Thank you very much for your attention!

European Committee of the RegionsUnit C2 – Commission for Economic Policy, Europe 2020 Monitoring Platform, EER

Marc KiwittAdministrator – EER scheme

Web site: www.cor.europa.eu/eerE-mail: eer-cdr@cor.europa.eu

Twitter: @EER_Award