SMecoMP Interreg Balkan - Mediterranean Programme-North Macedonia

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Balkan Med area face strong challenges, especially in the areas of innovation, entrepreneurship and environmental protection and investment in innovative and/or "green" products or services is very small. Furthermore, the recent economic crisis increased unemployment and created the biggest brain drain in the region in modern times, depriving SMEs and Higher Education Institutes (HEI) from young, talented, and well educated personnel. The SMecoMP project addresses both challenges by developing a strong and resilient knowledge alliance among HEIs, vocational education training (VET) centers and SMEs, to promote eco-entrepreneurship, -management and –innovation, The overall objective is to promote eco-management and –innovation among existing SMEs and support young entrepreneurs in entering in the "green" and/or "blue" economy, creating new added value jobs, improving the area's competitiveness, ameliorating the brain drain phenomenon, contributing thus to the area's sustainable development.