Enhancing Competitiveness of Microenterprises in Rural Areas Erasmus Project

Project Title

Enhancing Competitiveness of Microenterprises in Rural Areas

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

Context of the Project: The MICRO Project addresses capacity and training needs of microenterprises in rural areas across the EU to sustain their competitiveness, for enhanced growth, and further employment generation. The idea behind MICRO is to develop and deploy an Open Educational resource or OER, with open and widely available training content and modules, targeted at micro/craft enterprises. The OER content will support the development of basic and transversal skills, (such as entrepreneurship, ability to operate in the EU Single Market, self-employment, etc.) for rural micro-enterprise entrepreneurs in an innovative way. The innovative aspect of MICRO relies on its bottom-up and demand driven approach while consolidating on the expertise and experience of Vocational Education and Training (VET) practitioners and technical experts. The innovative aspect also relies on the openness of project partners in the utilization of feedback, making MICRO an open platform not only for training and capacity building, but also for networking, cross-border transaction facilitation, and for rural microenterprise match-making throughout the EU .
Objectives: The objective of the MICRO project is to sustain growth and competitiveness of rural microenterprises by developing practical training resources that can be delivered both face-to-face and through the Open Educational Resource/Online/Virtually. MICRO will provide a mechanism to bridge capacity gaps to sustain growth and competitiveness of rural microenterprises while overcoming their isolation by creating;
• A cost/resource-effective categorized online interactive platform easily used and understood by businesspeople, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs-to-be, SMEs and Micro SME workers, as well as general public. The MICRO Project OER responds to the social need of supporting a specific entrepreneurial groups and the rural business community. The MICRO OER also makes training available to rural female entrepreneurs who, in general, are too often at risk of job un-employment and marginalisation because of their gender. The MICRO Project OER provides “entrepreneurial training” for entrepreneurial spin-off activities often developed by rural women.
• A series of user friendly, professional, and useful training records (training fiches) to support entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs-to-be, in terms of first business experience and professionalization of their starting activities
• Online multi-language trade and business glossary to help users identify concepts and terms in everyday activities, thus boosting market opportunities, creating synergies, building trade relationships, and building networks between entrepreneur target groups such as rural women entrepreneurs.
• Tailored training courses specifically targeted to entrepreneurs that respond to the gaps identified 
 
Partner Profile: Seven partners participated on the MICRO project (Partner #);
1. Irish Rural Link Cooperative Society Ltd (IRL) Country IE
2. National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUIM) Country IE
3. Community Development Institute, Macedonia, (CDI) Country MK
4. EEO Group Consulting, Greece (EEO) Country GR
5. IHF, Brussels Country BE
6. IDP, Italy Country IT
7. Internet Web Solutions, Spain (IWS) Country ES
Description of main activities undertaken:
A) Design and Development of an Open ICT Platform, Project Logo, Website [IO1 OER Platform and project website in 6 languages]
B) Identify specific knowledge gaps and capacity needs of microenterprises in rural areas in six countries [IO2 Capacity Gap Assessment]
C) Design innovative multilingual training content, material and web based tools / OER platform (six languages) [IO3 OER-MICRO training courses developed in 6 languages]
D) Test and validate the main results with at least 200 microenterprises in rural areas in 6 countries [IO4 200 SMEs trained in 6 Countries – Test and Validation of MICRO OER]
MICRO relied on a practical, yet scientifically accurate, methodological approach: this balance was provided by the partner type (academic, business, NGOs and facilitators or rural development) making up the consortium. MICRO’s methodology was sequenced along the following steps:
– Gap assessment
– Development of training (demand driven)
– Pilot for user-based validation
– Finalisation
– Full roll-out and deployment through OER.
Results and Impacts obtained:The purpose of the Test and Validation phase of MICRO was to test the training courses developed and validate that they address the specific training needs and capacity gaps identified in the assessment phase. The feedback and comments from the 368 participants involved in the pilot deployment of the MICRO training provided the input to allow for fine-tuning of the MICRO web-based platform and the training content.
The first task of this phase was to develop a Validation Plan outlining how the objective to collect reliable inputs and feedback from the partners was to be achieved.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 289970 Eur

Project Coordinator

IRISH RURAL LINK CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY LIMITED & Country: IE

Project Partners

• NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND MAYNOOTH
• INSTITUT DE HAUTE FORMATION AUX POLITIQUES COMMUNAUTAIRES
• IDP SAS DI GIANCARLO COSTANTINO (ITALIAN DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS)
• Internet Web Solutions SL
• ZDRUZENIE INSTITUT ZA RAZVOJ NA ZAEDNICATA
• EEO GROUP SA