SPEEDUP

The SPEEDUP project “EU-MED hubs to accelerate SMEs sustainable and competitive growth” is the instrument that will deliver to unemployed and disadvantaged people the mentoring, motivation and organizational services they need to set up own sustainable and competitive business in the countries Greece, Spain, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Cyprus and Tunisia.

The concept of the SPEEDUP project is an evolution of previous initiatives based in the implementation of a locally distributed Accelerator for different aims, such as quality and sustainability. Within SPEEDUP, the Accelerator concept will be extended to include the whole Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) spectrum, and Green and Circular Economy as well, with a special attention to equality, inclusiveness and competitiveness. This main objective will be reached through the implementation of a network of local hubs in the project countries, acting as catalysts and clusters and uniting all the relevant stakeholders in each area that are related to entrepreneurship in the form of startups. The SPEEDUP hubs will operate as a distributed kind of “Park”, offering training/mentoring locally, in the form of jointly developed Acceleration programme. 

The partnership by itself will demonstratively put in place the long term development of the SPEEDUP network: applicant and partners will act as main local hubs, ensuring the financial sustainability, the local coordination and the international connection among all SPEEDUP main hubs; the associated partners will join the network as local member hubs, make use of the SPEEDUP achievements and continue fostering the SMEs sustainable growth after the end of the action; additional local actors will be encouraged to join the network and operate local member hubs within the implementation. Through its Acceleration programme, SPEEDUP will infuse sustainability issues into 210 SMEs participating to the project pilot and promote the start and competitive growth of 140 businesses.