CREA aims to promote ICT development and creativity as new drivers able to produce specific structural changes and arrangements in the European entrepreneurial base, to influence the future paths of social change and innovation to a large extent. CREA project wants to validate a new European Model of Summer Academy for students who wants to develop business ideas focus on creativity and ICT and able to explore innovation in advanced fields: new products for new markets, social innovation, meaning drive innovation in old sectors, service innovation, technology driven innovation etc. CREA will test 2 edition of Summer Academy simultaneously organized in 6 European Cities (Milan, Stuttgart, Ljubljana, Newcastle, Tallin, Utrecht), which will end with an international event (CREA ICT Business Idea Contest) for the presentation of results to international investors and the awarding of a prize. The project includes training courses, mentoring activities and the incubation program for start up companies that will be able to use the opportunities of ICT and Creativity to propose new business model with a European vision. The general objectives of CREA project are: - To create European wide system of Summer Academies for university and last year high school students entirely focused on ICT entrepreneurship; - To create a model of Summer Academy action oriented with a strong focus on ICT and entrepreneurial skills development and a rich offer of mentoring, support for business planning, matchmaking opportunities and generation of ICT related business idea; - To stimulate the development of new start up business ideas boosting on ICT and creativity; - To complement and extend similar existing Summer Academy program while strongly focusing on ICT and creativity entrepreneurship; - To organize and promote ICT Business Idea Contests.

<< Objectives >>The cooperation partnership for VET project “MegaStrat” co-designs a new curriculum and a corresponding online training course for long-term opportunity forecasting (LTOF). The main objective is to enable high-tech SMEs in the mobility and production industry to capitalise on individual opportunities megatrends offer by translating futurologic high-level trends into executable long-term strategies and actions for competitive advantages for a future more than 10-20 years ahead.<< Implementation >>MegaStrat consists of four work packages co-led by partners from industry and academia. It begins with a systematic inventory of existing knowledge and training offerings. Together with stakeholders (strategists, opinion leaders, think tanks), the curriculum is co-designed. The resulting components are thoroughly evaluated and published in the form of an online course. The project then develops a mainstreaming and outreach plan to ensure broad adoption of the curriculum.<< Results >>The main project result will be the MegaStrat Online Course, which will deliver the learning experience of the co-designed curriculum and make its training materials publicly available. The online course will also include guidelines for mainstreaming and outreaching its content. In this way, VETs and other facilitators will gain the ability to teach LTOF theory and methods to equip SMEs with personnel capable of using LTOF in strategic decision-making processes.

InnoCreate is an ambitious coordination and support action aiming to stimulate the growth of the creative industries in Europe by overcoming challenges at individual SME level (small size, problems with access to finance, barriers to new market entry…), at the innovation support level (disparity in availability and quality of support) and at overall creative industry level (fragmentation, localisation…). InnoCreate will respond by networking innovation support players and harnessing their regional strengths into a European ecosystem of supports to respond more effectively to SME needs. Two specific end user groups of SMEs will be targeted through InnoCreate: creative industry SMEs exploiting advanced technologies and ICT SMEs innovating in the field of creative industries. Both of these target groups will be equally supported. SMEs will benefit from an imaginative programme of communication and support actions: InnoCreate will piggy-back on the Creative Business Cup to raise awareness about the ICT Challenge competition, network SMEs throughout Europe at the InnoCreate International Camps and provide customised one to one supports for the most promising SMEs with high growth potential. InnoCreate galvanises existing structures by bringing together three strong existing European networks – EBN, CKO and the ECB Network and a network of innovation multipliers at regional level. The InnoCreate service offering aims to be immediately accessible online and ‘on-site’ in 15 EU partner and associate partner countries with a target of engaging further stakeholders to deliver the support services in all EU member states by the project end. The impact of InnoCreate will be tangible – for individual SMEs, for innovation support actors and for the growth of the European creative industries as a whole.