EMPOWERED by NEIA brings together a team of stakeholders from 7 EU countries (2 Regional Innovation/Development Agencies and 5 Business Support Organizations - incubators and accelerators) with he ambition to engage in a process of peer mutual learning and cooperation and support Clean Tech for Sustainable Development. Based on an in-depth analysis of strengths, weaknesses, challenges and gaps in the ecosystems they represent, the EMPOWERED by NEIA team members strive to bring together the members of the innovation ecosystems they represent as active stakeholders in bottom-up policy-making activities tailored to their needs. Through an Entrepreneurial Discovery process, we aim to stimulate a participative process that will allow to identify the best innovation opportunities in each ecosystem and align them with the ones of the peers. The results of the Entrepreneurial Discovery run locally by each partner will represent the foundation of Action Plans, elaborated according to the European Entrepreneurial Region approach, to strengthen the collaboration between the Regional European Innovation Ecosystems. These plans will be back up with collaboration and project ideas for which public and private funding will be sought. Through the involvement of the EMPOWERED by NEIA consortium partners in landmark initiatives such as the European Association of Development Agencies (EURADA), the Vanguard Initiative or the activities of the European Entrepreneurial Region initiative, we will connect with external peers to expand the learning and cooperation process, disseminate our activities and increase their impacts.

Beekeeping is an agricultural activity plays a very important role in the sustainability and development of rural areas. As it is an activity that requires a low economic investment and does not require large areas of land or land ownership, it can be practiced by small farmers and by families linked to the rural world. It is also an excellent option for creating one's own job or to allow an extra income as a second activity in areas where the labor supply is scarce. Furthermore, it is an activity that might contribute to empower rural women and reinforce her role in agriculture as it is easily adjusted given the multifunctional role they play and the fact that they are more exposed to unemployment. In Europe, beekeeping is an activity mainly developed by beekeepers with a low level of professionalism, who have little knowledge in the area, often acquired only through experience. Given the importance of this activity for rural development and for the preservation of biodiversity, their promotion is of utmost importance. The “beeB - Foster for beekeeping bridges through innovative and participative training” project will count on with the contribution of six European countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Norway and Estonia) to contribute for the acquisition and development of basic skills and key competences in smart beekeeping, based on continuing vocational training, in order to facilitate the process of innovation, economic growth and social cohesion, through education, training and personal development; to reduce disparities in the access to and engagement of groups with less opportunities, like family and women beekeepers, and unemployed people in rural areas, promoting inclusion and gender equality through formal and non-formal education, based on the use of innovative and digital technologies and continuing VET; and to develop and structure partnerships to promote work-based learning for the beekeeping sector and bring forth skills and competencies for people that are or intend to be beekeepers, and that don’t have experience and knowledge in the area.Thus, it is intended to provide family and non-professional Beekeepers, with training in the area, which often does not exist or is scarce and encourage new publics, especially women and unemployed people from mainly rural areas, to practice this activity. It is intended to meet the training needs of each beekeeper, using innovative and attractive methodologies that can be used at workplace, such as adaptive learning, micro learning, community learning, gamification, innovation spirals, cross visiting, pills of knowledge, infographics. It is planned to draw up a course curriculum, based on a flexible b-learning adapted to different realities and regions and on the exchange of experiences and knowledge among peers (beekeepers, technicians, teachers/trainers) and guaranteeing national and European certification / qualification. It also provides for b-learning training aimed at personalized learning and. This project will provide beekeepers and future beekeepers with a reference of skills in the area of beekeeping. In the end of the partnership, the beekeeping and educational sectors will have available an innovative course curriculum in beekeeping, both from a technical and an active learning point of view, that will result from innovating in education and training with the deep engagement and contribute of partners from different parts of Europe, combining knowledge, work organization, social and cultural differences, heritage, through an intensive exchange of experiences and common training, that will allow the team and participants to grow intellectually, technically, socially and contribute for deeper European self-knowledge and cohesion.The project will bring positive and long-lasting effects on the participating organisations and persons directly or indirectly involved in the organised activities, as well as on the beekeeping sector, specially at the nonprofessional, family and women beekeepers’ levels, also creating a positive trend towards the adhesion of new beekeepers. It is also expected to have an impact in other European countries and in countries sharing the languages adopted in the project, with special relevance to Portuguese and Spanish.

dRural overall goal it to co-develop and implement a digital solution that delivers multiple services to rural citizens while creating opportunities economic growth and quality of life improvements. Then, to ensure the successful exploitation and sustainability after the project’s lifetime and its replication in other European territories. As such, our aspiration is to become the service marketplace of reference for European rural areas. dRural will build a service network for rural areas and communities based on four rural regions of Europe, namely: Extremadura (ES), Dubrovnik-Neretva County (HR) and Region Gelderland Midden (NL). Each of these settings are called regional demonstrators. The solution building will follow agile methodologies and ensure end-users co-creation and validation in each regional demonstrator. Besides, dRural will be developed with a 'by-design' approach to ethics, privacy, and data protection. An internet coverage optimization in the demonstrators will be done to guarantee a smooth deployment. Then, the solution will be set up in each region, guaranteeing its personalization and customization to the regional needs, and integrating with the local service providers. In parallel, an ecosystem of relevant players surrounding the dRural solution will be created in each region by identifying the key stakeholders, current problems and designing a value proposition for each of them. The ecosystem building exercise will be supported by an open call in each demonstrator leveraging financial support to third parties to incentivize the solution take up and expand the ecosystem of players involved. This will offer opportunities for entrepreneurs by promoting new market openings allowing also smaller and newer players to capture value. An evaluation of usage and impacts will be performed to ensure on-going support in the region after the project completionend.

This action will establish and provide the innovation support services addressing in general Croatian SMEs with significant innovation activities and in particular the beneficiaries of the SME instrument, of Fast Track to Innovation (FTI) and Future and Emerging Technologies Open (FET-Open). This action will provide continuation of the SSBI-CRO-KAM-3 proposal which is currently implemented under the remit of H2020 for the period of 2017-2018. Based on the findings from previous actions and on the analysis of the needs and of the potential of the region (carried out through 1on1 consultations with other relevant partners/stakeholders supporting innovation in Croatia) the consortium defined service packages that will be delivered to the SMEs: • 8 service packages for Key Account Management (KAM) of successful SME beneficiaries of the funding schemes SME Instrument, Fast Track to Innovation (FTI) and Future and Emerging Technologies Open (FET-Open), with the aim to identify bottlenecks to creation of economic impact in companies benefiting from Horizon 2020 grants, • 15 service packages for Enhancing Innovation Management Capacity (EIMC), with the goal to improve clients’ capacity to manage innovation processes, increasing their efficiency and effectiveness. Project partners HAMAG-BICRO, TPV, TERA and STEPRI will each individually provide number of service packages according to the analysis of regional needs (regional coverage, number and readiness of clients). Direct impact from the Action will be a more effective and efficient conduction of innovation processes, and an enhanced growth and profitability of SMEs receiving the services.

A multi-KET (key enabling technologies) approach is most beneficiary for SME in regard to increase in productivitiy, efficiency and market shares. To enable a Pan-European Access for SME on technology services for clean production, a network of premier KET Technology Centres with facilitated one stop shop access, offering SME multi-ket infrastructures and services across borders on pan-european level is generated, involving innovation consultants from the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) being local = at the doorstep of EU`s manufacturing SMEs. Due to the disparity of KET TC in EU28, KET4CleanProduction (KET4CP) enables also a discourse with policy makers on RIS3 and the potential of cross-border collaboration to cover specific SME needs for clean production technologies. KET4CP starts with 12-premier KET TC and 7 EEN as an open innovation ecosystem, with a one stop shop access. KET facilitators support the SME in identifying their specific technology challenge for clean production, propose services and technologies based on innovation potential + need analysis. The fast, flexible services focus on the SME´s business case. After a pilot phase with 20 SME innovation projects/micro grants, the network is scaled up adding 17 KET TC and 21 EEN members, to reach a critical mass of CP technology deployment in SME. Targeted actions stimulate initial requests of >120 SME from > 10 EU MS and a total of 70 SME micro grant projects with min. 140 KET TC. 2 MEUR third party financing go to SME in total. 50 % are targeted for low to modest innovator regions. KET4CP delivers standard procedures / tools for KET TC transnational collaboration and joint service/shared infrastructure, based on business model scenarios stimulating KET TC to collaborate and share clients. KET4CP creates a sustainable platform, a win-win situation for all stakeholders with a high potential for scale up. The aim for 2022 is to have 100 KET TC and 180 EEN members with 1000 SME inquiries p.a.