EEPA 2023 Shortlist revealed

The European Enterprise Promotion Awards (EEPA) 2023 has unveiled its shortlisted projects across the competition’s six categories, showcasing outstanding initiatives that foster entrepreneurship, innovation, and sustainable growth in Europe. While we eagerly anticipate the announcement of the winners during SME Week in November, let's take a closer look at the impressive projects that made it to the shortlist. These are presented in alphabetical order below.

The EEPA 2023 shortlist represents a diverse range of projects dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship, digital transformation, sustainability, and responsible business practices across Europe. And so, without further ado – the shortlisted projects in this year’s competition are:

9Academy (Bulgaria) supports personal and professional development, with participants going through nine modules including entrepreneurship, marketing, legal affairs, and so on.

CIRCO – creating business through circular design (Netherlands) equips companies and designers to (re)design products, services and business models to do business in a circular manner.

Craft Hub (Ireland) seeks to develop the entrepreneurial, managerial and professional capacity of professional crafts workers in Europe through a series of activities.

Future Makers (Romania) is an entrepreneurial education programme connecting and supporting young people from Romania and Central and Eastern Europe.

Go Cloud (Sweden) explores the use of the digital space to create a new approach to incubator operations, which enables people over a vast geographical region to work together.

Greentech Procurement Accelerator (France) aims to accelerate the ecological transition through public procurement of green innovations.

Impulso Emprende (Spain) promotes entrepreneurship among primary school children and vocational training students, who work on an entrepreneurial project throughout the year.

IVDK Hub for Ukrainians (Denmark) is helping 1,100 Ukrainian refugees develop entrepreneurial skills, start a business and contribute to the rebuilding of their country.

MAP | Early Warning Mechanism (Portugal) is an online, free tool that supports early-stage companies, avoiding their closure and the loss of jobs and skills, while also building the capacity of entrepreneurs.

Modernizacija i povećanje konkurentnosti poljoprivrednih gospodarstava (Croatia) solves the challenges agricultural producers face in storing products at a good price.

Open Innovation Platform (Austria) is a digital open innovation platform that virtually connects experts from science and industry with a professionally interested public.

Resilience and rescue skills for SMEs, strengthening Early Warning Europe (ResC-EWE) (Denmark) promotes sustainable entrepreneurship by supporting future entrepreneurs to create resilient businesses.

SINES TECH – Innovation and Data Center Hub (Portugal) is a site for technology-based companies, located in the Sines Industrial and Logistic Zone (ZILS), the largest industrial park in Portugal.

SLEEVESUP (Luxembourg) supports refugees in creating a business in Luxembourg, including with practical training in the administrative aspects of business creation.

Start-up Refugees: Business Programme (Finland) provides participants information, skills and an approach towards entrepreneurship with the help of training, market validation, business advice and events.

The Break Fellowship (Spain) is an international network of 1,000 women entrepreneurs, providing an opportunity for them to develop key skills, and boost and internationalise their businesses.

The cluster Arctic Game and the projects Innovation Game and Innovation Game 2.0 (Sweden) these initiatives support the gaming industry, focusing on internationalisation, attracting investments and enhancing the number of female game developers and entrepreneurs.

Thrive4Women (Ireland) supports women to launch and pursue STEM careers and businesses across three key pillars – capability, connections and confidence.

ZICER Start-up Value Chain (Croatia) is unique start up ecosystem that takes a comprehensive approach to supporting start-ups in their growth and development.

What’s next?

The winners of this year’s competition will be announced at the EEPA Awards Ceremony, to be held at the annual SME Assembly in in Bilbao in November. This year the event will be co-hosted by the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union and the European Commission. At the SME Assembly, the jury will also announce the winner of the Jury’s Grand Prize, which can be from any category - the Grand Prize goes to the entry that the jury considers to be the most creative and inspiring entrepreneurship initiative in Europe.

If you would like to find out more about the European Enterprise Promotion Awards, visit the Promoting Enterprise News Portal and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.