Introduction

Entrepreneurship development is an important requirement for achieving the goal of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth set out in the Europe 2020 strategy.

Starting a business remains a daunting task and there is a real need for targeted support for more socially vulnerable people.

Despite the range of support services available for individuals within the target groups and the range of business support services available, there is a lack of provision in existence to support such disadvantaged individuals.

The Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership for Adult Education project “ACCESS ENTERPRISE” seeks to develop strategies across member states in order to support marginalised groups to access business and self-employment opportunities, and help adult educators and business support practitioners develop new and existing skills and participate fully in society.

The project ACCESS ENTERPRISE is coordinated by Merseyside Expanding Horizons (United Kingdom - UK) with project partners from Spain (Formacion para el disarrollo e insercion, sociedad limitada), Portugal (Aproximar-cooperativa de solidariedade social), Lithuania (SIF -Socialiniu Inovaciju Fondas), Greece (Athens Lifelong Learning institute eastiki mi kerdoskopiki etairia) and Romania (Centru Pentru Promovarea Invatarii Permanente Timisoara Asociatia).

The project‘s results are the following three intellectual outputs (IO):

IO1 ‘State of Art’ review on Entrepreneurship support for marginalised groups

IO2 Training Modules and Resources for Business Advisers / Coaches working with people from marginalised groups

IO3 Impact and Assessment, Positional Analysis and Sustainability Report


The target groups that will benefit from the project are:

Professionals: Trainers and Enterprise coaches, supporting the above groups

People who are disadvantaged based on gender, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion

Individuals who are excluded from the labour-market