The main objective of the project was to strengthen the support system and promote entrepreneurship among young women through the development, implementation and evaluation of the FEM-SKILLS Model (acronym from FEMALE ENTREPRENEURSHIP META-SKILLS MODEL) supporting the development of entrepreneurial meta-skills of young women. The main objective of the project was accompanied by specific objectives: - Combating gender stereotypes and integrating gender equality issues into entrepreneurship support ecosystems. - Promoting entrepreneurship and self-employment as a valuable career option for young women and an opportunity to empower young women. - Increasing awareness of gender inequality issues in the entrepreneurship sector and access to entrepreneurial education. - Developing and promoting a new competency model of transversal entrepreneurial skills FEM-SKILLS. - Increasing the substantive potential of partners and internationalization of activities through joint planning and implementation of the project, - Developing international partnerships and networking of entrepreneurship development environments among young women. All of them were reflected in the measurable and unmeasurable results of the project.
The FEM-SKILLS project was initiated in response to the documented gender gap in entrepreneurship. According to EUROSTAT data from 2021: 67% of self-employed people are men compared to 33% of women. Pre-project evaluation studies showed that only 12% of women positively assess their entrepreneurial predispositions compared to 23% of men, which reflects a systemic problem. Two key barriers were identified: (1) competency - insufficient support in developing women's entrepreneurial meta-skills, (2) structural - limited integration of the gender perspective in entrepreneurship support ecosystems. The project responded to the need to create an empirically verified, replicable model for supporting young women's entrepreneurship through the systematic development of meta-skills - higher-order competencies that determine effectiveness in business activity. The FEM-SKILLS model was designed as a tool for operationalizing the European Competency Framework (EntreComp) in the context of the specific needs of young female entrepreneurs.