Projects

INTERINO - Cross-border Integration of Knowledge, Competencies and Innovation; Operational Programme IPA Slovenia - Croatia 2007-2013

CEPOR is a partner in the project INTERINO (2011-2013), whose objectives are to encourage an entrepreneurial culture, formation of new companies in the cross-border area, knowledge transfer from academia into the economy and development of new services of project partners - business incubators, technology parks and development agencies for achieving their mission. Partners in the project are Institute for Entrepreneurship Research (IRP), Technology park Ljubljana, Pomurski technology park, Istrian Development Agency (IDA), Regional Development Agency Međimurje (REDEA) and Technology park Varaždin and CEPOR. University Development Center and Incubator of Primorska (UIP) from Slovenia is the leading partner.

In this project, implementation of 8 regional competitions and one cross-border competition for the best business plan will be conducted, aiming to enable 80 potential young entrepreneurs to start, grow and develop their businesses. The project also anticipates presentation of a larger number of research institutions in the border area in the online catalogue which is one of the prerequisites for cooperation between these institutions and the SME sector in knowledge transfer, innovation and technology.
The implementation of the project will last 24 months.

 

Strategy for development of women entrepreneurship in Croatia, adopted by the Croatian Government on March 11th 2010

CEPOR prepared the Strategy for development of women entrepreneurship in Croatia (pdf).
The strategy has several components. The most important components are analysis of best practice development of women entrepreneurship in the EU member states, and gathering and analysing collected data, through public focus groups (held in Zagreb and Osijek), through which the experience and recommendations of representatives of civil society, entrepreneurs, government institutions, academic institutions, media, and others were gathered.

National strategy for women's entrepreneurship identified a number of practical proposals that could improve various aspects of increasing participation of women in economic activities, such as setting-up of a Women business mentoring network – “Business Godmothers“, establishment of women’s venture capital and business angels network, development of women entrepreneurship in rural areas, awareness raising campaigns with an aim to empower women to enter into their own business endeavours, publishing of a „catalogue“ of female business success stories and best practices in women's entrepreneurship, etc.
In the process of drafting the Strategy, CEPOR has worked with representatives of associations involved in promoting the inclusion of women. Implementation of the Strategy envisages the empowerment of civil society associations in their advocacy activities and effective inclusion of women in economic and social life.
CEPOR actively works on a plan to operationalize the recommendations identified in the Strategy through practical projects in cooperation with the Ministry of Economy, Labour and Entrepreneurship, regional business centres, universities and EU institutions.

 

Croatian Small Business and EU Challenge: danger or hope?

The "Croatian Small Business and EU Challenge: danger or hope?" project focuses on providing information about the advantages and disadvantages of the European Union single market for the small and medium-sized enterprise sector. The low level of awareness about the European Union within the sector has contributed to their either neutral or negative attitude toward Croatia's accession to the EU.
More about the project

 

Promoting Entrepreneurial Skills in Vocational Schools: Preparation for the Labour Market (donor European Commission CARDS 2003)

It is the experience of developed and dynamic economies that entrepreneurship does not only generate new and successful companies, but that the entrepreneurial spirit is essential for the ability of a democratic society to change as a whole. Entrepreneurially oriented individuals think about using new opportunities and combining resources (human and material) in new ways. In short, entrepreneurial spirit is building the future.
More about the project

 

Support to Promotion of Reciprocal Understanding of Relations and Dialogue between the European Union and the Western Balkans (donor European Commission CARDS 2002)

The aim of the project is to aid the understanding between the European Union and individual Western Balkan countries through EU supported reforms. In 2004, project will support implementation of integration policies in Western Balkan countries, institutional and legislative development and improvement of the potential of each individual country.
More about the project

 

Promoting Craft and SMEs in the Area of European Standardization

The aim of the “Promoting Craft and SMEs in the Area of European Standardization” project is to identify policy measures used by the national administration, national standardization bodies, and professional SME support institutions, whose function is to increase awareness of small and medium-sized enterprises and crafts and their involvement in European standardization. Data was gathered from a large number of stakeholders in national administration bodies and business organizations in 32 countries. The main element of project implementation was a centralized Internet survey in 25 languages, implemented with support from EIM's local partners in 32 countries. CEPOR was project's local partner in Croatia. Within the entire project, emails requesting cooperation were sent to 1,200 experts, with the reply rate of 30%. A database of 400 policy measures was prepared, out of which 23 were selected and described as examples of good practices, including one from Croatia. A final report was prepared by EIM, which was presented at the international conference organized on the occasion of the World Standards Day in Brussels on October 16, 2006.
Download

 

Croatia: From Dependent to Entrepreneurial Culture (donor USAID, Academy for Educational Development)

The Project is designed as value adding set of activities, focused on advocacy and policy recommendations, to the results, which will be obtained through the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor surveys in 2005 and 2006. CEPOR and its partners plan to use the opportunity of having strong evidence of lacking entrepreneurial culture in specific areas, like education and regulatory framework, as a basis for better documented advocacy and policy activities than just purely expressing dissatisfaction with the situation.

 

Local Economic Development and Small Enterprises: Economic Development through Cooperation between the Šibenik-Knin County and Tuscany (donor European Commission, CARDS 2002)

CEPOR is the local partner in the project "Local Economic Development and Small Enterprises: Economic Development through Cooperation between the Šibenik-Knin County and Tuscany", which is coordinated by Toscana Promozione, Italy. Project is financed by the European Commission. The aim of this project is to expand the entrepreneurial base, promote and strengthen the SME sector through founding of a One Stop Shop (Business International Point – BIP) at the Center for Entrepreneurship of Šibenik-Knin County. During the project, entrepreneurs' needs have been investigated using focus groups and interviews, which helped in identification of the most significant obstacles to the development of entrepreneurship in the county. There are three expected outcomes of the project:

  1. Founding of the BIP, whose principal function is to improve the quality of information provided to entrepreneurs at the Center for Entrepreneurship, as well as the speeding up of the administrative procedures
  2. Help with founding 10 new enterprises and providing support for the development of 10 existing enterprises
  3. Establishing contacts with potential business partners from Tuscany

Here you can access presentations from the round table "Local Development and Small Enterprises", held in Šibenik on June 24, 2005:

  1. Professor Slavica Singer "Small Enterprises and Local Economic Development Policies in Croatia"
    download (ppt, 224Kb)
  2. Professor Slavica Singer "Administrative Barriers to Starting a Business Venture – What Should and Can Be Done?"
    download (ppt, 99Kb)
  3. Manuela Bigi "Tuscany: Quality, Tradition, Innovation"
    download (ppt, 2,264Kb)
  4. Andrea Manueli "Local Development and Small Enterprises – project presentation"
    download (ppt, 400Kb)

 

Education Model for Entrepreneurs in Growing Enterprises (donor European Training Foundation, Open Society Institute - Croatia)

European Training Foundation and Open Society Institute - Croatia have financed the "Designing an SME Training Model for Croatia" project in 2002 and 2003. Education model is aimed at enterprises with growth and export potential. Using the best practices, and with help of experts from Durham Business School, UK, CEPOR has educated consultants in three centers for entrepreneurship (in order to build potential for providing support to enterprises, which are in the phase of growth and export expansion).