ENHANCING THE EUROPEAN ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEM BY CLOSING THE GAP BETWEEN HIGH AND LOW/MODERATE INNOVATION REGIONS: THE ENTREPRENEDU CASE

The European entrepreneurial ecosystems are facing increasing global competition, nevertheless closing the innovation gap among European countries and regions is still a necessity to provide education schemes and supporting mechanisms for youth and startups. Technologically driven sectors such as spacetech and deeptech are well suited for innovation but new entrepreneurs, students and researchers often lack the necessary know-how to build a resilient and successful business. To provide the right expertise, support the birth of innovative ideas and ultimately strengthen entrepreneurial ecosystems the project ENTREPRENEDU - Enhancing Entrepreneurial Ecosystems for Education - brings together several innovation stakeholders and educational entities from 6 different European countries, 3 low/moderate innovative regions Italy, Bulgaria and Greece and 3 high innovative regions Belgium, Germany and Ireland. ENTREPRENEDU - is a Horizon Europe financed programme, coordinated by Fondazione E. Amaldi, that aims to create a more innovative, entrepreneurial and sustainable European higher education system. The project is conceived for students, young entrepreneurs and start-ups working in the space economy, deep tech and green and digital transition and aims at creating a high replicable and scalable Venture Building Program for both businesses and educational systems via a series of 3 Hackathons, developed at regional level, supporting developed concept and ideas to become concrete solutions. ENTREPRENEDU aims to foster the birth of innovative ideas that will have an impact on both the Green Deal and the SDGs, as well as on gender equality with the goal of having concrete projects for a better and more sustainable world. The goal of this paper is to illustrate the best practices regarding the structuring and implementation of the scalable and replicable ENTREPRENEDU Venture Building programme. This study will present the results of the first hackathon focusing on deeptech, the feedback and the needs of the participating teams and start-ups.