iEER Launch, Monday 19^th September, Ballygarry House Hotel.

On Monday the 19^th September, representatives from Kerry businesses, enterprise support agencies, Kerry County Council and IT Tralee gathered at the Ballygarry House Hotel to launch the Interreg Entrepreneurial European Region (iEER) Project “Boosting Innovative Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Europe”.

The aim of this project is to create an opportunity for entrepreneurs, aged between 25 and 40 years of age, to learn from different models of best entrepreneurial practice across Europe.

In 2011, Kerry was awarded the title of Entrepreneurial European Region (EER) of the year. This status identifies and rewards EU regions which show an outstanding and innovative entrepreneurial policy strategy, irrespective of their size, wealth and competences. The regions with the most credible, forward-thinking and promising vision plan are granted the label “European Entrepreneurial Region” (EER) for a specific year. Kerry has joined with 17 other regions across Europe in obtaining this status. Kerry is by far the smallest in area and population size relative to the other regions across Europe, however, Kerry as a region matches the partners across all the metrics.

The iEER project, which has ten partners (8 of whom have EER status), is led by Helsinki- Uusimaa Regional Council and other project members include Northern Ireland, Brandenburg region in in Germany, Southern Denmark, Valencia in Spain, Nord–Pas-de-Calais in France, Marche in Italy plus two non EER Regions – West Pomerania Region of Poland the Western Region of Romania.

Over the next two years project partners will learn from each other to build better services and regional policies in support of business start-ups and young entrepreneurs.

International learning camps are core to the iEER allowing enterprise support agencies, academic institutions and young entrepreneurs to identify and road map what makes or breaks a budding business. The first learning camp will take place next week in Brandenburg where partner regions will travel to learn about the entrepreneurial mind-set and competences. The follow on peer reviews will assist each partnering region on how they might improve their local eco-systems.

In March 2017, representatives from each of the 10 regions will travel to Ireland and will spend time in Northern Ireland and Kerry studying the enterprise ecosystems of both regions.