About the project

Fostering entrepreneurship is widely considered as a condition for economic growth and thus a smoother transition towards a more prosperous economy is ensured. This is especially the case in the accession countries such as Croatia, which faces the challenge of developing entrepreneurial spirit and reinforcing the co-operation between the education and business worlds. Several studies underlined the gap between the supply and demand of knowledge, both in quantity and relevance, often resulting in a deficit of business skills and competences.

The SLIM project has been developed to bridge this gap. In particular, it aims at transferring two innovations in the realm of business start-up training and support:

• The first innovation consists of an online self-assessment management tool, created by the Manchester Metropolitan University Business School (UK). It is designed to unlock the barriers to business growth. The software covers the six management areas of a small business: marketing, people, innovation, operations, finance and regulations. The tool enables SMEs to gain an instant snapshot of their business proposal and identify which areas require increased focus.
• The second component of the transfer draws on the results of an innovative programme on Intellectual Property Management developed at the Warsaw School of Economics (PL). The uniqueness of this programme is its focus on the economic and managerial side of intellectual property, with special emphasis on IP valuation and IP protection.

The main challenge of this innovation transfer is to adapt these two techniques and to make them accessible to SMEs in Croatia and beyond. In order to achieve this task, the project will largely rely on e-learning modular courses. The new online programme will be built on the findings of an extensive need analysis of the SMEs in Croatia and in the other partners’ countries. The Croatian partners will establish close cooperation with companies to test and disseminate the e-learning course. The e-course will be available in Croatian, Polish and English and will be complemented by a set of supporting materials for the entrepreneurs undertaking the training.

Project Partners

• The Manchester Metropolitan University (project coordinator) University of Rijeka Faculty of Economics and Business
• University of Zagreb The Warsaw School of Economics EFMD

Associate Partners

• The Federation of Small Businesses 
• Science and Technology Park of the University of Rijeka BTM Mazovsze Ltd Arenda 

Activities

The project is structured around eight key activities:

• Project management
• SME needs analysis
• E-course development
• Pilot phase for training and testing
• Improvement and final transfer
• Dissemination
• Quality assurance
• Exploitation and future sustainability of the results

SLIM is a two-year EU-funded project under the Lifelong Learning Programme (Leonardo Da Vinci).