We’ve successfully completed the first Activity of our project, the Regional Ecosystem Mapping. This marks an important milestone for the CONNECT project.
Across all partner regions, we analysed existing support systems for migrant entrepreneurs, identifying key actors, structures, and gaps. The findings confirm a clear pattern: the main challenge is not the lack of support, but difficulties in accessing and navigating fragmented ecosystems.
Two key deliverables have been finalised. The Regional Ecosystem Mapping Reports provide detailed insights into individual local support landscapes, while the Needs Assessment Summary highlights cross-regional challenges such as barriers to finance, complex administrative systems, and limited system accessibility.
The results were generated through a comparative needs analysis combining regional ecosystem mapping with more than 40 interviews directly held with migrant entrepreneurs across all partner regions. This mixed-methods approach enabled the finding of perspectives and a practice-oriented understanding of how support systems function in reality.
These results now form the evidence base for the next steps: comparative analysis and the co-development of a Joint Strategy for more inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems.