The document discusses a brainstorming session on supporting startups and scaling up at the iEER Conference in Brussels. It provides background on iEER which aims to define solutions to boost regional entrepreneurship ecosystems. Key findings from iEER include the need for collaboration across organizations and reducing silos. Examples of good practices for startup support are provided, such as startup events and incubation/acceleration programs. Challenges and opportunities for the future are then discussed, such as how to bridge innovation and business, the role of funding, and leveraging new technologies.

1. Brainstorm:Start-upandscaleup
support.FutureOpportunitiesand
challenges
Ms.TuijaHirvikoski,ENoLLpresident,LaureaUniversityofApplied
Sciences,Finland(moderator)
Mr.PontusStråhlman,StartupInvestorandSerialEntrepreneur,
Finland
Mr.FrankHysa,TheHiveCoWorking&Incubator,Italy
Ms.JoannaNiemcewicz,RegionalCentreforInnovationand
TechnologyTransferin
Szczecin,Poland
Ms.LoneToftild,UniversityofSouthernDenmark,Denmark
iEER Conference, 22–23 March 2018, Brussels
Boosting Innovative Entrepreneurship Ecosystem in Regions for Growth
and Job Creation
https://www.interregeurope.eu/ieer/events/event/1438/ieer-
conference/

2. Together we are stronger!
Laurea | www.laurea.fi| https://www.laurea.fi/en/research-development-and-innovations/laurea-living-labs
President of European Network of Living Labs | http://www.openlivinglabs.eu/ |
Open Innovation Luminary Award 2016 , for Open Innovation Infrastructure Creation https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-
market/en/news/innovation-luminary-awards-ceremony-2016-open-innovation-20-conference
Member of the EC’s Open Science Policy Platform (OSPP) http://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/index.cfm?pg=open-science-
policy-platform
OKMATT -kv-ryhmä | https://avointiede.fi/home
Member of Horizon interim evaluation expert group (SwafS/RRI) https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/h2020-
section/science-and-society
Bridging the investment gap: How to tackle the challenges?Committee of Region Opinion
http://cor.europa.eu/en/events/Pages/investment-gap.aspx
Member of European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing https://ec.europa.eu/eip/ageing/home_en
Member of Uusimaa Regional Coordination Committee | http://www.uudenmaanliitto.fi/en | https://www.helsinkismart.fi/
Tuija.Hirvikoski(at)laurea.fi
PhD (Industrial Management)
MSc (Public Administration)
MSc (Physical Education)

3. We’ll be
brainstorming
with YOU,
be ready to
ask,
comment,
contest and
…. answer!

4. Brainstorm: Start-up and scale up support.
Future Opportunities and challenges
Brainstorming questions:
Ecosystem collaboration – who is leading or should anybody lead?
Funding – public funding, private funding – what difference can public funding make?
Public-private(-people) cooperation – who should lead?
From innovation to business – how to tackle the valley of death – European level solutions
– are there?
New technology (AI, robotics etc) and Big Data - what does it mean for ecosystem and
Start-ups
European advantages compared to US, Asia – are there any?
Your topics to be brainstormed?

5. iEER is Boosting Innovative
Entrepreneurship Ecosystem in Regions
iEER aims to define smart paths and solutions to boost regional entrepreneurship ecosystems
which support young entrepreneurs.
By identifying good practices that have helped to break down silo mentalities and bring
together all actors to contribute to the region’s success in promoting entrepreneurial activity,
The effectiveness of startup and acceleration support is dependent on the collaboration and
dynamics of a startup ecosystem.
the startup ecosystem framework, good practices on startup and acceleration support and
interconnection (virtual and real) between innovation & entrepreneurship development
platforms and societies in different regions.
SMEs need an entrepreneurial ecosystem that provides assistance, less regulatory burden in
firm creation and innovation as well as learning in general, for them to survive, grow and
eventually compete on an international level.

6. iEER Selected Key Findings
Communities in general, understand what their needs are better than any outside
organization. Therefore, developing a startup ecosystem to build a flourishing startup
ecosystem requires a substantial amount of feeling of belonging, engagement,
empowerment and building of mutual mindset and understanding of local people and
organizations with right knowledge, tools and resources.
Silos Reducing Effectiveness - There is a clear feeling about local startup supporting
organizations are working in silos, causing people and organizations to miss the big picture.
There is a mutual understanding that in order to affect real change, there is a need and
desire to break the walls to connect services and work collaboratively with businesses, non-
profits, and other government agencies but this is not happening in a real sense. What is
important in such scenario is to seize the opportunity to start creating real operative
process level connections across silos, improving communication level between
organizations and ensuring that key actors are working efficiently toward the mutually
agreed goals.
Overlapping services and service gaps - In many cases there are overlapping processes for
different stages of the startups development. At the same time, there are gaps in some
support needs areas, often regarding team and organization building support and
connecting or navigating between services. By adding availability of these services in
specific times of year or months, more caps and discontinuum arises.

7. iEERExamplesofgoodpractices
Startup Events
Slush, Helsinki-Uusimaa
Two day startup and investor eventorganised annually
Student driven, non-profit originally founded to change
attitudes to entrepreneurship
Facilitates investors and founders meeting
In 2016 there were 2,336 startups, 1,146 investors, 5,643
investor-startup meetings and 610 journalists
Strong emphasis in founder and investor meeting
Activating and Networking Activities/ Student
Involvement
Hubhouse – Accompanying mission, Haut-de-France
The Regional council in collaboration with Universities
have created 7 Hubhouses
Develop a strong entrepreneurial culture and ecosystem
Hubs for all students and less 2 years graduated who
want to develop or create a project.
34,477 Students sensitized, 312 students guided, 30
business creations
Development Structures for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
STARTUPV – Valencia
Promotes entrepreneural culture among the university community , Provides entrepreneural training to
students , Free accessible mentorship programs , Up to 50 annual promotion activities , Main stakeholders
include 5 public universities
Incubation and Pre-incubation Services and Programmes
Antreprenor de Sezon (Seasonal Entrepreneur), West Region Romania
Pre-incubation program provided participants with opportunity to test their ideas , Antreprenor de
Sezon” was developed to give students opportunity to try out entrepreneurship in a one month
challenge , 10 teams of students with 2 kind of backgrounds: entrepreneurial/economic and
creative/artistic , Main aim is to develop a product that can be sold
Regional Centre for Innovation and Technology Transfer (RCIiTT), West Pomerania, Poland
Activities are shared on the 2 options both pre-incubation and incubation, Pre-incubation program
is for everybody who wants to start a business , Incubation program (1-2 years) provides help for
young companies, which are developing their business , Conducts counseling and training
services for companies, researches, students and university graduates in the field of technology
transfer, funding researches and development and supporting academic entrepreneurship , Some
of the services are free of charge
The New Frontiers Entrepreneur Development Programme
Ireland’s national entrepreneurship programme , Accelerate development of sustainable new
businesses , New Frontiers differs from privately-funded ‘accelerator’

8. Future opportunities
and challanges

9. Challenges

10. Challenges
Ecosystem based Opportunities:
1. Bridge the gap between the Mission Oriented Participatory and Open RDI and the growth oriented Start Up
activities. In European regions where the value creation and disruptive innovation creation takes place in a safe and
well orchestrated ecosystem with shared meaning creation, shared risks and shared resources?
2. Benefit and Scale up from the Local to cross-border product and business model co-creation, iterations, testing
and product take-up to benefit (speed and growth) from the Single Market?
3. Local authorities: Use the Agile Pilots, Innovative Procurement and Pre-commercial Procurement for market
creation

11. 1
OPEN CALL
2
SELECTION
PROCESS
JURY
3
PILOTING
PROCESS
CO-CREATION
4
PROGRAM
AND PILOT
EVALUATIOn
AGILE PILOTING
Engaging the urban community
NETWORKS
SME’s , start ups
OTHER SMALL ACTORSs
RESIDENTS
THIRD SECTOR
COMPANIES
RESEARCH PARTNER
SHARING LEARNINGS with
6PACK CITIES
CITY, Innovators
club
Max. 6 kk
2 months
Challenges
Learning
CIRCLE OF FACILITATORS
EXAMPLE

12. Key support phases: Formation, Validation,
Growth
From innovation to business
– how to tackle valley of
death – European level
solutions – are there?
- Bridging the gaps between the
innovation and business ecosystem
- Innovative procurement for market
creation
Funding – public and EU
funding, private funding –
what difference can EU
funding make?
- open science, open innovation,
open to the world strategy
- bold decisions in public RDI
investments = mission oriented

13. Organisations interacting as an organic
system to create new innovative companies
Ecosystem
collaboration –
who is leading or
should anybody
lead
Establishing Common
understanding
Ecosystem Development
& Orchestration
Testing and iterations
Public-private
cooperation – who
should lead?
Circle of moderators

14. European advantages compared
to US, Asia – are there?
“A mission-driven approach can be critical for European competitiveness. Other
major players in the global economy, like China or the United States, have
innovation systems that are more centralised or focused on a reduced number of
key clusters.
Europe, on the other hand, is both more fragmented – which can be a negative in
terms of gaining scale – and more diverse – which creates a messier but also
potentially more creative environment.
To capitalise on this asset, Europe needs to take the next step and take advantage
of its unique nature as a common market of diverse economies. In addition to
strengthening regional research and innovation capacities, Europe also needs
European Union wide efforts to connect policies and grand challenges. What the
mission approach can add to the next European Framework Programme for
Research and Innovation is a new lens to help steer investment towards
tackling challenges but in a more focussed, problemsolving manner. Europe’s
unique multilevel governance system is highly suitable for mission-oriented policies:
member states and regions can experiment within larger EU-wide missions.”
Transnational product co-creation, testing and validation to shorten
the time from design to market and to speed up the market take-up

15. EXAMPLE
MISSIONS OF THE FUTURE
BOLD, INSPIRATIONAL WITHWIDE
SOCIETAL RELEVANCE
“Great entrepreneursLOVE solving BIG
problems”
A CLEAR DIRECTION: TARGETED,
MEASURABLE AND TIME-BOUND
AMBITIOUS BUT REALISTIC RESEARCH
& INNOVATION ACTIONS
CROSS-DISCIPLINARY, CROSS-SECTOR
AND CROSS–ACTOR INNOVATION
MULTIPLE, BOTTOM-UP SOLUTIONS
Portfolio of projects and
bottom-up experimentation

16. New technology AI, robotics, Big Data - what
does it mean for ecosystem and Start-ups?