Women Entrepreneurs: Inspire Us! Erasmus Project

Project Title

Women Entrepreneurs: Inspire Us!

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Gender equality / equal opportunities; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education

Project Summary

Context/background of the project: The INSPIREUS! project, offers an ambitious and forward-looking outlook on strengthening female entrepreneurship. Supporting female entrepreneurs, especially at the start of their entrepreneurial paths, is crucial in realising the creation of more companies led by women on an EU level, whereas, at the same time helping more women in the EU join the active workforces. Across the globe, women participate in paid economic activities less than men. When women do participate, they often work in lower-paying jobs and sectors and have less access to social safety nets. At the same time, it is estimated that closing the gender gap in the workforce would add 28 trillion USD to the global GDP, and that’s only counting the monetary gains, not the human rights and other benefits. For these reasons, we all need to work together to support and remove barriers to women’s economic recovery and empowerment, and entrepreneurship in its various forms is a powerful catalyst to make this a reality. Entrepreneurship can generate jobs for women and their peers and help them tackle EU & worldwide challenges faced.

Objectives: The project overall scope is to transform young female entrepreneurs in terms of realizing the connection between internal motivation & business creation. The specific objectives of the project are: a) Develop an inspiring and motivational programme which will offer hands-on experiences to women; b) Investigate the psychological factors of female entrepreneurship, with particular focus on personality and motivational factors; c) Create tools helping future women entrepreneurs to achieve self-awareness; d) Create a community of women entrepreneurs from all over EU. The collaborative environment creates a new “culture” and a network of women entrepreneurs. Women are important agents of change, and harnessing the potential of women entrepreneurs will be crucial for the sustainable and inclusive recovery of economies and societies, especially useful in challenging periods, such as the era of Covid-19.

Number, type & profile of participants: The direct target group of the project were future women entrepreneurs (25-40 years) who have developed some skills and professional expertise taking into account their professional experience, but they find themselves without motivation to start a business. These women could be also employed young women who want to improve their soft skills, competencies, entrepreneurial skills, communication skills, etc. The main target group of the project was involved to the project activities from the very early stage: starting with a survey and analysis for the development of a competencies matrix and policy recommendations report (IO1), testing the self-assessment tool & pilot phase of the educational programme (IO2 & IO3), best-testing the training platform (IO5) and providing useful recommendations for improvement. The pilot participants representing the project’s direct target group, have also participated to the various multiplier events, helping to spread awareness of the project (89 participants in total).

Activities: The project partners have delivered 5 IOs, a very successful C1 training activity, and other project related activities falling under general project management actions.

Results & impact: The final evaluation report of the project, proves that the quality of the products delivered in INSPIREUS! is high, whereas the relevance of the topic and the high responsiveness of the target group, were amongst the biggest strengths of the project. In particular, the participation in pilot training as well as registered interest, the high level of partner collaboration in developing all project IOs in full quality, prove the success of the project consistently. Activities such as the C1 hosted in Portugal, have proven to be very useful to consolidate the in depth discussion of the respective topics, to meet stakeholders, to form transnational teams and professional communities, get insight to relevant European environments, as in this case the start-up ecosystem in Lisbon, and therefore strengthen the European dimension of the project.

Longer-term benefits: Partners should extend their focus on elaborating the women-specific aspects of the programme, such as specific business and networking culture and mutual encouragement. The project can serve as a useful basis platform, under which sustainable utilisation of the products to further design the material in a concise and easy to understand manner. Moreover, the partners can continue to consider on a deeper level the cultural and economic differences in the partner countries, where in some cases discrimination of women is implicit but significant, while in others the good career opportunities in employment slow down the entrepreneurial aspirations of women; thus it is interesting to expand INSPIREUS! to a larger-scale project.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 202961,5 Eur

Project Coordinator

GRANTXPERT CONSULTING LIMITED & Country: CY

Project Partners

• STORYTELLME, UNIPESSOAL LDA
• ISOB INSTITUT FUR SOZIALWISSENSCHAFTLICHE BERATUNG GMBH
• CESIE
• PIA, informacijski sistemi in storitve d.o.o.
• ASTIKI MI KERDOSKOPIKI ETAIREIA FOUR ELEMENTS