<< Objectives >>The project aims at CAPACITY BUILDING of three Business Support Organisations from CZ, PL and PT addressing RECEPTION AND INTEGRATION of TGs of IMMIGRANTS AND REFUGEES by peer learning and exchange of experience leading to IMPROVEMENT of their STAFF’S COMPETENCES IN CREATING TRAINING COURSES. The project leads to re/designing of 3 partners’ training offers to make them INCLUSIVE AND SUPPORTING DIVERSITY. The trainings will lead to ENHANCING TGS’ EMPLOYABILITY by supporting their self-employment.<< Implementation >>A1: International Inspirational Workshops: - online kick-off meeting - SWOT analysis online workshop, - 3 face-to-face 4 days lasting International WSs in partners’ countries, - 6 in-company follow-up seminars. A2: Peer Learning and Capacity Building: - 3 Peer-learning online events. A3: Good Practice Transfer and Piloting: - re/designing of partners’ training offers, - piloting, - elaboration of Good Practice Guide. Dissemin., evaluation and PM - part of each activity.<< Results >>Following results will be reached: Activity 1: - 2 online events - SWOT analysis - 3 F2F international events - 6 national follow-up in-company seminars Activity 2: - 3 international peer-learning online events - 3 written recommendations for training courses re/design. Activity 3: - 3 re/designed training courses in form of toolkits for trainers (1/country), - re/designed training courses piloting with TGs including evaluation in form of focus groups, - Good Practice Guide.

The project foresees organisation of ERA Career and Mobility Days in Poland at the beginning of 2017/2018 academic year in 5 regions (Warsaw, Krakow, Poznan, Gliwice and Lodz). Each of the events will last 3 days and each day will address different themes related to a researchers career and will include varied forms of knowledge transfer (from presentations to workshops and face-to-face discussions), stressing the international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral dimension of the research profession, promoting at the same time, the EURAXESS initiative. The target audience of the events are young researchers, PhD candidates in particular, and students interested in research. An additional national seminar is planned in Warsaw for Polish institutions having the European HR Excellence logo in order to show them how they can create even more attractive working conditions for researchers, learning from invited experienced European experts. In order to ensure the widest possible impact of the PL-ERADays, the project consortium is composed of the EURAXESS Bridgehead Organisation, as Coordinator, 4 EURAXESS regional Centres and a first Polish company specialising in science promotion. Various organisations and experts experienced in supporting researchers in their professional development will be invited to participate in the project activities. On top of the physical events taking place in the 5 cities, a large-scale online communication campaign is planned as a big part of the project which will be coordinated by the above-mentioned company. Thanks to the campaign and direct involvement of the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the Polish ERA Days will also impact policy makers, underlining the importance of supporting mobility and career development of researchers in the country where further steps need to be taken to increase jobs, funding and career development support in order to stimulate innovation and economic growth.

The main project’s aim is to enhance the agencies’ management efficiency in the field of seeking the ways how to attract innovative SMEs by using emerging communication and marketing tools and facilitating interaction and partnerships with various actors of innovation ecosystem. Four innovation agencies involved in the project will work using twinning+ methodology in order to create valuable Design Options Paper regarding communication, branding and marketing strategy for strengthening the position of innovation centres on the national as well as on the international arena as a high value added business support organisations. The solutions developed in the paper will be implemented in the agencies as new or improved programmes based on these given approaches. The result of peer learning activities within the project will be developing an effective approach to identify new topics in the field of communication, find the attractive methods od engaging inovative SMEs and put them into practice. It involves designing the whole proactive marketing process from the identification of the target group, marketing channels and campaigns, attractive offer, diagnostics of individual needs, consequent support delivery and follow up of the process till key performance indicators. The results of the project will be communicated to regional and national authorities as the topic of reaching the right SMEs is very common with regard to efficiency of policies aiming to enhance SMEs competitiveness, especially their growth on national and international markets as well as their engagement in innovation processes.

The main challenge that the European start-up ecosystem is facing, is that innovative start-ups fail to scale up at a sufficient rate. Start-up incubators play a significant role in helping start-ups in Europe to scale up. An Incubator is a set-up to reduce the chances of failure of an early stage start-up and they have a deep impact on start-up ecosystem and its stakeholders. Although incubators have an increasingly important role in supporting early stage companies with the basic needs of developing a company, they are consistently failing to provide services that are needed for companies to go global and scale up. The Scale-up Champions project builds on the premise of equalising opportunities of scaling up for start-ups across Europe and connects less and more developed startup ecosystems. Our strategic objective is supported by the following sub-objectives: • Increase the connectedness among members of deep-tech start-up ecosystems and their companies (start-ups and scale-ups) and to the larger european business ecosystem seeking maximum synergies. • Increase access to customers, private and public, access to qualified employees, access to the right combination of finance and prospects for scaling up across borders. • Stimulate European investments in deep-tech digital sectors through increasing the number of cross-border investments. To achieve these objectives, Scale-up Champions’ consortium will implement the following actions: • Develop a method for experience-sharing among project partners that fosters the collaboration between different European start-up incubators. • Foster start-up and corporate cooperation in order to build sustainable partnerships through active support of start-ups and corporations. • Build the fundraising capacity of deep-tech start-ups through an active investment readiness program and create working networks between investors and start-ups. • Foster cross-border activities for European start-ups in order to support interna