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• Borderstep project in the final of the European Enterprise Promotion Awards

Success for Borderstep project: For the third time in a row, both winning projects of the German preliminary round have made it to the shortlist of the European jury and are in the final of the European Enterprise Promotion Awards (EEPA): The “Action Programme Inner City & Future Fund Inner City” of the Bremen Economic Development Agency and the European joint project ScaleUp4Sustainability, in which Borderstep participated, now have a great chance of winning an award during the SME Assembly in Prague at the end of November.

Promoting entrepreneurship

For the 16th time, the jury of the European Commission will award outstanding projects and initiatives to promote entrepreneurship with the European Enterprise Promotion Awards (EEPA). This year, both winning projects from the German preliminary round made it to the European final of the competition: the measures developed and implemented by the Bremen Economic Development Agency as part of the “Action Programme City Centre & Future Fund City Centre” to revitalise the city centre in connection with the Corona pandemic and the European joint project ScaleUp4Sustainability, led by the Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, in which students worked together with companies to develop new concepts that think about business models both economically and ecologically.

Since 2006, the European Commission has awarded the European Enterprise Promotion Awards annually to publicly funded or volunteer-run initiatives and non-profit enterprises dedicated to promoting entrepreneurship and enterprise. The two-stage competition with six competition categories is held in the EU Member States as well as in Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Great Britain, Iceland, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine. The participating countries identify a maximum of two projects or initiatives from two different categories in the course of national preliminary decisions – in Germany carried out by the RKW Competence Centre in Eschborn – that stand out for their particularly innovative and inspiring support services. At the end of September, the international jury nominated 20 finalists for the 2022 competition round.

Final: Teams from Germany focus on the future

The European-funded Borderstep project ScaleUp4Sustainability developed innovative concepts for cooperation between students and companies from Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands with the help of practical teaching and learning formats (cooperative green venturing). The three-and-a-half-year project was funded by the EU as part of the “Erasmus-Plus” funding programme. The focus was on thinking sustainability and economics together in the development of new business models. The institutional national partners were the Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg and the Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability. The “Challenge4Impact” project, which started in February 2022, builds on the approaches developed for cooperative green venturing.

Under the motto Bremen is becoming new, a variety of measures provide more quality of stay in the city centre. This strengthens the city in the long term. The initiative is a joint project of the Senate Chancellery, the Senator for Economics, Labour and Europe, the Senator for Climate, Environment, Mobility and Urban Development and the Senator for Culture, under the leadership of Mayor Dr. Andreas Bovenschulte and financed by the Bremen Fund. WFB Wirtschaftsförderung Bremen GmbH develops and implements various concepts within the framework of this Bremen Action Programme and the City Centre Future Fund. For example, concept store and pop-up store competitions have been held to revitalise empty retail spaces and thus offer innovative concepts a location in a prime location and increase diversity in the city centre.

The European Enterprise Promotion Awards will be presented on 29 November 2022 during the EU Commission’s SME Assembly in Prague, Czech Republic. The SME Assembly is one of the most important events for small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe. The nomination for the final is already a great success for the Borderstep project.

Further information on the competition can be found here and on the EU Commission’s news portal.

Shortlist with all finalists of the 2022 competition round.