STARTENT members

Canary Islands Institute of Technology

The Technological Institute of Canary Islands (ITC) is a public sector company belonging to the Government of the Canary Islands (since 1992). Its mission is “to lead Technological Innovation and Transfer in strategic sectors which favour competitiveness and Sustainable Development in the Canary Islands and the surrounding geographic and cultural are, with Excellence in Management”.

As Business Innovation Centre, the ITC provides several services to the entrepreneurs like Business incubators, assistance and feasibility analysis in the phase prior to creation and mentoring for three years (stay at the BIC centres). Other services offered address specifically SMEs including favouring the technology and promotion of technology transfer, facilitating the access to regional, national and European source of funding, assisting in the business development and marketing activities.

The ITC is currently running several projects promoting entrepreneurship both at regional, national and European level. ITC is coordinator of the REMPART project under the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs Programme.

www.itccanarias.org

UEAPME European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

The voice of SMEs in Europe.

UEAPME is the employers’ organisation representing the interests of European crafts, trades and SMEs at EU level. UEAPME is a recognised European Social Partner. It is a non-profit seeking and non-partisan organisation.

As the European SME umbrella organisation, UEAPME incorporates 84 member organisations from 34 countries consisting of national cross-sectorial SME federations, European branch federations and other associate members, which support the SME family.

UEAPME represents more than 12 million enterprises, which employ around 55 million people across Europe.

University Foundation of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

The “Fundación Universitaria de Las Palmas” (FULP) was established as a non-profit organization in 1982, as response to the social movement which was demanding a University in Gran Canaria. In April 1984 the Canarian Government established the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

Since then, FULP activities have always been oriented towards fostering culture, education and research in the Canary Islands, particularly in the University environment. In its daily work, the FULP cooperates tightly with the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and is responsible for managing the relations between the University and corporations, public institutions and civil society organizations.

In particular FULP dedicates efforts to promoting the innovation by means of transferring research knowledge from the University to the enteprises and to support entrepreneurs, researchers and corporations in the process to obtain funds for their research and innovation projects.

The University of Cyprus

The University of Cyprus was established in 1989 and now has six faculties: the Faculty of Humanities, the Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences, the Faculty of Economics and Management, with two departments, the Economic Research Centre and the Centre for Banking and Financial Research, the Faculty of Engineering, the Faculty of Letters, and the Archaeological Research Unit, the Faculty of Social Sciences and Education with four departments.

The University of Cyprus organizes on an annual basis since 2003, the Cyprus Entrepreneurship Competition (CyEC) a Business Plan Competition. CyEC aims to nurture entrepreneurial culture among young scientists in Cyprus and challenge them to transform their ideas into real business opportunities and to leading companies of tomorrow. In its seven year history, CyEC alumni have successfully launched a significant number of start-up companies, some with significant investments and revenues.

The University of Cyprus created the Diogenes Business Incubator in 2003 to support the development of the high technology sector in Cyprus. Diogenes began operations in 2004 under the Cyprus Government Program for Creating High Technology Enterprises through Business Incubators. The Ministry of Commerce provides seed capital of €200.000 max to entrepreneurs for startup creation in order to develop and commercialize high tech ideas.

www.cs.ucy.ac.cy

Business-university Foundation of La Laguna

The Business-University Foundation of La Laguna (FEULL) was established1987 under the initiative of a group of institutions, namely: the University of La Laguna, the Official Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Navigation of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the Confederation of Tenerife’s Entrepreneurs, CajaCanarias and the Canarian Society of Entrepreneurs.

Its main goal is to promote the relationship between the University of La Laguna and its socioeconomic environment. A close connection between the academic world and the society allows the University to tailor its study programmes to the specific needs of its environment and to companies to access investigation results, encourage entrepreneurial culture, improve their human resources qualifications and hire the appropriate professionals.

FEULL is currently running a programme named Emprende.ull Project which goal is to encourage entrepreneurship among the university community, as well as support the creation and consolidation of business, with a special attention to innovative and knowledge-based activities.

www.feu.ull.es

Ruse University

The University of Ruse, named after Angel Kanchev, is the successor of the first national higher technical school outside the capital of Bulgaria, established in 1954. The University has more than 9 600 students, eight faculties and over 800 staff.

The Faculty of Business and management is established in 1994, has about 1200 students and 54 lecturers in 4 departments: Business and Management, Economics, Industrial Management, European sciences

Students can choose among 7 bachelor programs and 7 master courses.

The University of Ruse, and respectively The Faculty of Business and management, is also a co-founder of the “Resita” Network in Entrepreneurship and Innovation including 12 universities from Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, B&H, Croatia, Germany, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia.

www.uni-ruse.bg

Centro de Empresas e Inovacao da Madeira

The Business Innovation Centre of Madeira (CEIM – BIC Madeira) was created in 1997 and is currently, under the patronage of the Vice-Presidency of the Regional Government, the entity responsible in the Autonomous Region of Madeira for the application of the “Business Innovation Centres Program” (EC BICs).

BIC Madeira main goal is to support the implementation of business projects, acting as an important instrument to promote entrepreneurship, innovation and the importance of the intellectual property, contributing for the emergence of start-up companies, supporting them in the early stages and in the aggregation of value, therefore contributing to boosting the business environment in Madeira.

www.ceim.pt

The Bulgarian-Romanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry

The Bulgarian-Romanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BRCCI) is a private association, established in 2003 to support the Bulgarian and Romanian business communities. BRCCI has more than 100 Bulgarian and Romanian member companies from various economic sectors (industry, transport, tourism, commerce, services, etc.). Among the members are Prista Oil, Kaolin, Rompetrol – Bulgaria, Albena PLC, Orgachim, Fikosota Holding, Mobexpert – Bulgaria, Monbat, Bella Bulgaria, Olineza, Oltchim, Nubiola and other.

BRCCI is the only organization providing targeted support to companies wishing to establish themselves on both markets. We provide full package of tailor-made services to all businesses interested to locate in or export to the two newest EU member states. Through the years more than 600 companies have used BRCCI’s services.

BRCCI has a specific experience in cross-border cooperation Bulgaria – Romania in supporting local SMEs to foster business cooperation and trade across the border or to start new business ventures in any of the districts of the common cross-border area between Romania and Bulgaria.

www.brcci.eu

Polytechnic University of Turin

Politecnico di Torino is part of a complex entrepreneurial network where different innovative actors are coevolving, including strong links with territory and local institutions.

The Politecnico entrepreneurial network is developing his own entrepreneurial capabilities combining either practical experience and theoretical research, gaining valuable knowledge from both sources, transferring entrepreneurial understanding and insight not only to students but also to real entrepreneurs.

With the aim to foster the entrepreneurship culture among young people has been created the Entrepreneurship and Business Plan course (E&BP). The course is centered in how to develop a strategic plan for a real high tech entrepreneurial initiative. The formula of this course, that take inspiration from GAP a program in the MBA at the UCLA Anderson School of Management MBA with Politecnico has established a collaboration, is nowadays unique in Italy.

www.polito.it

Nottingham Trent University

Nottingham Trent University is located in the East Midlands region of the UK. The university has some 25,000 students and is organised into nine schools of which the largest is the Nottingham Business School.

Founded in 1979, Nottingham Business School has grown to be one of the UK’s largest full-service business schools organised into six Academic Divisions: Accounting and Finance; Economics; Human Resource Management; Information Management Systems; Marketing, Retail and Operations; Strategic Management and International Business. There is a core academic staff of 140 people employed in the Business School.. It currently has 3,000 undergraduate students, 1,000 postgraduate and professional students and 1,000 delegates on its corporate and executive education programmes. The School also boasts links with more than 800 companies and 50 academic institutions across 40 different countries. The Business School has well established PhD and DBA programmes, with some 60 research students studying for PhD and in excess of 100 taking DBA. The Business School gained recognition from the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for its PhD training and has been awarded five Phd studentships from the ESRC since then together with two Post Doctoral Research Fellowships. Research training for PhDs is currently provided in collaboration with the Graduate School of the College of Business Law and Social Sciences. This training comprises six research methods modules, a weekly programme of additional research workshops and a bi-annual research student conference which takes place in May and December each year.