13.000 Jobs Created by Innovation-based Incubators (EU|BICs)

The European BICs Network - EBN -  publicly announces the results of its 2014 annual quality survey. The network, with over 150 quality certified Business and Innovation Centres throughout Europe and overseas, has fostered the creation of over 13.000 jobs and helped raise more than 284 million euros in funding for small businesses.

Commenting on these results, Giordano Dichter, Head of EU|BIC Services at EBN, has said: “We are very proud of our members’ results. EU|BICs dedicate their efforts and resources to help entrepreneurs with innovative ideas, turn those ideas into viable, successful and sustainable businesses. Such results confirm the strength of the EU|BIC model as an industry standard to look up to”.

Also EBN’s CEO, Philippe Vanrie, demonstrated his enthusiasm on the subject: “Considering Europe’s economic challenges today, these facts and figures demonstrate the EU-BIC model is a perfect method to professionalise and scale-up local and regional business and innovation support ecosystems".

This year’s questionnaire results can be seen in summary in this infographic. Data was gathered from on-line self-assessment, on-site audits and quality control by EBN. Alongside with considerable job creation, the network has supported 18.600 potential new entrepreneurs, 6.300 start-ups and 9.000 SMEs in 2013. The companies’ survival rates after incubation period amount to 90% and the value for money entails only 8.066 euros of public funding per job created.

At the end of 2014, a European Court of Auditors report  had already concluded incubators under the EU|BIC label are more efficient in their spending of public money, reach better results and have higher impact than other EU incubators, thanks to the use of sound quality, benchmarking and monitoring mechanisms[i].  Based on these evidences and strong impact results, EBN invites regional and local authorities to adopt the EU|BIC model in deploying more efficient business support ecosystems.

Background

EBN is a 30 year success story of European Union intervention. Created and funded by DG-REGIO in the mid-1980s, EBN’s task was to coordinate the activities of the EU|BICs, ensuring the best quality of service was delivered to the start-ups and SMEs within their territories. With sustainability in mind, EBN became a private, not-for-profit association of EU|BICs and is now funded from membership fees and projects won under open, competitive procedures. EBN is a classic example of how EU-funded activities can and should evolve. In its 30+ year history, EBN members have created thousands of new businesses and tens of thousands of new skilled and sustainable jobs.

More information:  www.ebn.eu

[1] 2014, European Court of Auditors,  “Has the ERDF successfully supported the development of business incubators?”, available at: http://ebn.eu/downloads/Special_Report_Incubators_ECA.pdf