INTERFACE – Innovation and Entrepreneurship for Fragile Communities in Europe, is a 2-year ERASMUS + project, which aims at enhancing innovation and entrepreneurship in selected fragile communities, experiencing economic decline and depopulation over the past years, in the project partner countries. 3 to 5 fragile communities per country will be selected to take part in the project, based on a 2-phase methodology to employ both quantitative and non-quantitative criteria. The objective of the envisaged project activities will be to support sustainable investment in community training, by means of community workshops and coaches’ preparation to assist fragile community members in becoming pro-innovative and more entrepreneurially-oriented, while generating and implementing actual ideas in areas, related to business start-up, social entrepreneurship, public-private partnerships, etc. The INTERFACE project proposal is a joint follow-up of a project in Iceland, identified as best practice, named “Fragile communities” (http://www.byggdastofnun.is/is/verkefni/brothaettar-byggdir) and implemented by the Lead partner – the Icelandic Regional Development Institute (IRDI), and of the FIERE project (Furthering Innovative Entrepreneurial Regions of Europe – http://fiereproject.com/), in which most of the INTERFACE partners/team leaders were also involved. INTERFACE claims innovativeness in being practically the first effort to transpose the “fragile community” concept from national (Icelandic) to EU level and come up with a transnational initiative for the support of fragile communities, covering such communities in different countries, located in different parts of Europe, finding themselves in very diverse national contexts. Furthermore, a first-of-its-kind fragile community coaches’ network will also be established, which will greatly facilitate the exchange of good practices and training delivery to fragile community members and representatives of local administrations. This will further have a multiplier effect on the efforts of the INTERFACE consortium to make a change regarding the situation of fragile communities EU wide. The project’s intellectual outputs (IOs) envisage firstly a Competence Gap Analysis, to be conducted by means of desk research, as well as interviews and on-line surveys within participating communities (IO1). High quality, practically-oriented community workshops and pilot training of community coaches will then be delivered (IO3), using curriculum and training content elaborated, based on the Gap Analysis’ results (IO2). In order to enhance the sustainability and efficiency of the training activities envisaged within the project, a fragile community coaches’ network will be established and a Learning platform created (IO4), containing all the developed learning resources and making training content and experience accessible to other communities for adaptation and further implementation. The INTERFACE target group comprises fragile community members and local authorities. Thus, the project is expected to directly benefit, at the different stages of its implementation, min. 15 community coaches (3-5 per partner country), min. 150 inhabitants of the selected fragile communities, to take part in the community workshops (min. 30 per country) and min. 50 fragile community members to be mentored by community coaches (min. 10 per country). In addition, the partners expect to directly involve no less than 275 relevant stakeholders (indirect beneficiaries) in the project’s multiplier events (5 Local Info Days and a Final Conference), Round Tables and National Reference Groups. The INTERFACE consortium comprises 6 partners with diverse profiles (regional institution, university, local authority, regional development organisation, consulting company and an NGO), all focused on community development, from 5 countries (Bulgaria, Greece, Iceland, Ireland and Italy). All partners will be responsible for implementation of the project activities in their own countries, incl. organisation of 1 multiplier event in each partner country upon completion of IO1 (Competence Gap Analysis) and an active involvement in the work on all IOs. Thus, the INTERFACE partnership achieves a good balance and mutual complementarity in terms of experiences/competences possessed and allocation of tasks and responsibilities. The INTERFACE project will have an overall impact on fragile communities and their inhabitants, policymakers, and participating organisations, as it is expected to narrow the existing knowledge gap, provide awareness on key concepts and opportunities and equip fragile communities with the needed tools to support their efforts for mitigating their state of “fragility” and improving their overall situation. Thus, the project’s end goal is to put in place a sustainable process of empowerment and self-initiative within fragile communities, which will continue to evolve after project’s completion.
INTERFACE (Innovation and Entrepreneurship for Fragile Communities in Europe) was a 2-year ERASMUS+ project, which aimed at enhancing innovation and entrepreneurship in selected fragile communities, experiencing economic decline and depopulation over the past years. Three to five fragile communities per country were selected to take part in the project, based on a two-phase methodology to employ both quantitative and non-quantitative criteria. There was the exception in Iceland, with over five communities participating. The objective of the project activities was to support sustainable investment in community training, by means of community workshops and coaches’ preparation to assist fragile community members in becoming pro-innovative and more entrepreneurially-oriented, while generating and implementing actual ideas in areas, related to business start-up, social entrepreneurship, etc. The model worked well in Greece, Bulgaria and Iceland, but in Ireland and Italy the partners had to adapt the methods to fit the local circumstances since it was challenging to get people to commit to the role of coaches as initially planned in the application. The INTERFACE project is a joint follow-up of a project in Iceland, identified as best practice, named “Fragile communities” and implemented by the Lead partner Icelandic Regional Development Institute (IRDI), and of the ERASMUS+ FIERE project, in which majority of the INTERFACE partners leaders were also involved. INTERFACE claims innovativeness in being practically the first effort to transpose the “Fragile community” concept from national (Icelandic) to EU level and to come up with a transnational initiative for the support of fragile communities, covering such communities in different countries, finding themselves in very diverse national contexts. Furthermore, a first-of-its-kind fragile community coaches’ network was established, which was intended to facilitate the exchange of good practices and training delivery to fragile community members and representatives of local administrations. The project’s intellectual outputs (IOs) are four. Competence Gap Analysis conducted by means of desk research, interviews and on-line surveys within participating communities (IO1). Practically-oriented community workshops and pilot training of community coaches were delivered (IO3), using curriculum and training content elaborated, based on the Gap Analysis’ results (IO2). In order to enhance the sustainability and efficiency of the training activities, a fragile community coaches’ network was established and a Learning platform was created (IO4), containing all the developed learning resources and making training content and experience accessible to other communities for adaptation and further implementation. The INTERFACE target group comprised fragile community members and local authorities. The project has directly benefitted people at different stages of its implementation. Amongst those are 16 coaches and over 300 attendees in community meetings and masterclasses in the partner countries. In addition, the partners directly involved over 170 relevant stakeholders (indirect beneficiaries) in the project’s multiplier events (5 Local Info Days and the Final Conference). In Iceland the National Reference Group of around 10 people was active in the GAP community selection process and later through e-mails and newsletters. The limited time at the partners’ meetings did not allow for roundtables in relation to each Partners’ meeting, with the exception of a roundtable with a community representative in one of Palermos’ Fragile communities and at the Final meeting in Iceland, with participation of the coaches in Iceland. The INTERFACE consortium comprised six partners with diverse profiles, all focused on community development, from five countries (Bulgaria, Greece, Iceland, Ireland and Italy). All partners were responsible for the implementation of project activities in their own countries, incl. organisation of a multiplier event and an active involvement in the work on all IOs. Thus, the partnership achieved a good balance and mutual complementarity in terms of experiences/competences possessed and allocation of tasks and responsibilities. The INTERFACE project has had an overall impact on fragile communities and their inhabitants, policymakers, and participating organisations. It is considered to have narrowed the existing knowledge gap and to have equipped fragile communities with the needed tools to support their efforts for mitigating their state of “fragility” and improving their overall situation. Thus, the project’s end goal has been met, namely to put in place a sustainable process of empowerment and self-initiative within fragile communities, which will continue to evolve after project’s completion.