European innovation performance continues to increase, yet inequalities, particularly in access to investment, are still noteworthy. There is a need to close the performance gaps, which are still visible between Strong Innovators (North and West EU) and Moderate and Emerging Innovators (South and East EU mostly). A major asset to successful and sustainable business growth relies upon awareness and strong communication between innovative sectors and investors on available resources, their access and interventions by public/private funders. Improving networking between innovation ecosystems is key to the success of growing businesses and driving continued economic development. HER FUND’s ambition is to foster knowledge-sharing and synergies between innovation actors, existing initiatives/projects in order to support the next generation of startups, with an emphasis on women-led companies and gender-conscious investors. These interactions will notably lead to best practices’ identification, capacity-building activities and guidelines. Strengthening and broadening an interregional collaboration hub will promote a more competitive EU and a more sustainable, inclusive, diverse and resilient world. This will be done in a community-driven, cross-functional, cross-sectoral, multiplier based way, with partners bringing together communities of experts from different deep-tech sectors from around Europe and beyond. HER FUND will 1) transform less connected territories into recognized and attractive innovation valleys that pool and reward investments, 2) create bridges between EU innovation ecosystems increasing access to capital and investment in less connected innovation ecosystems and allowing local start-ups benefiting from foreign investments, 3) raise the number of gender conscious investors in Europe for support to women-led companies, 4) boost women entrepreneurship, especially in Moderate and Emerging Innovators offering them access to more funding opportunities

The main objective of ST(R)E(A)M IT is to initiate change about the persisting gender inequalities in STEM education, research, and innovation to contribute to the implementation of the ‘The European Manifesto for gender-inclusive STE(A)M education and careers.’ The envisioned aim of the project will be achieved by 1) empowering underrepresented groups in STEM, 2) piloting and fostering the integration of STEAM approaches in STEM education by synthesising previous knowledge and networks, 3) promoting gender-inclusive career paths and increasing the talent pipeline in the STEM fields together with the attractiveness of STEM careers, 4) supporting STEM education providers through knowledge sharing, capacity building to remove gender-based barriers including gender stereotypes in STEM education. By encouraging sustainable collaboration of STEM-oriented businesses, secondary and higher education institutions, research organisations, as well as informal science education establishments, NGOs, and civil society organisations, ST(R)E(A)M IT provides several tools for closing the existing gender gap in STEM education and career.

The BridgeTTe project has been designed to overcome the most critical gaps in the European innovation landscape between academia and industry that prevent them to benefit from an efficient mutual exchange and use the potential and resources. In particular, the project will address low engagement among the innovation ecosystem actors, missing entrepreneurial competences at academia and insufficient prioritisation of research topics / their links to market / enterprise / industrial needs and are slowly able to react to trends, to name some of the problems addressed. The BridgeTTe project will do so by systemic search for local talents, strategically deploying advanced AI tools, pioneering one-of-its-kind university prototyping programs and market validation assistance, capacity-building training programme and implementing joint activities with business experts, industry clusters and excellent infrastructures from innovation hubs. BridgeTTe will maximise the value of innovation to all by fostering synergies and connectivity of two prominent Central European academic institutions, the Brno University of Technology (BUT) and Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava (STU) to the local, European and global markets by leveraging strategic cooperation with innovation catalysts connected to enterprises (JIC and ADDSEN) and outreach to leading innovation ecosystems and infrastructures (WONDER). BridgeTTe will empower sciencepreneurs, foremostly women, to transform local cutting-edge research into deep-tech start-ups and spin-offs with pan-European and global impact. Through establishing strategic cooperation networks between academia and enterprises, it will nurture the next generation of deep-tech start-ups and spin-offs. The methodology of BridgeTTe connected ecosystems will be further disseminated across the EU and serve as an example worth following, foremostly in emerging innovation ecosystems of the CEE.

SCALE'HER aims to strenghten women-led start-ups in strategic digital and deep tech markets across Europe. It emphasises growth, leadership development, market validation, and networking to enhance their market footprint and strengthen connections with relevant ecosystems and potential new markets. Prioritising startups with market-product fit or financing, especially from LCIEs, SCALE'HER provides support services for women-led startups. Through innovative cross-border activities like blind audition competitions, and an individually tailored acceleration programme, it fosters connections between startups and ecosystems including matchmaking with investors and business opportunities. The project also includes initiatives such as "Mission innovation" to strenghten the connection within and between the stakeholders and ecosystems in Europe, or the "Women Entrepreneur Roadshow" to showcase startups to investors, expanding their presence in key areas like AI and cybersecurity. Ultimately, SCALE'HER will foster the growth of women-led scale-ups, promote diversity, and advance strategic digital technologies across Europe while creating solid bridges between European innovation ecosystems in Europe.