ERENET

ERENET (Entrepreneurship Research and Education NETwork of Central European Universities) is an open-ended research and development network aiming at carrying out research on entrepreneurship and developing entrepreneurial curricula and teaching materials among the Central- and Eastern European high-schools and academic universities. The network is based on a partnership relation among its members.

ERENET logo

History

ERENET was established in 2005 at the initiative of Péter Szirmai (1947-2013), among others, following the suggestion of the Expert Meeting on "Good Governance for SMEs" organized in April 2004 by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. The network is moderated by Antal Szabó. Currently, ERENET has 190 academic members from 43 countries.

Aims of ERENET and its main fields of activities

In order to realise its objectives, the network has undertaken the following actions:

  • Creation of an international network of higher education on teaching and investigating entrepreneurship
  • Providing exchange of information, making each other acquainted with their curriculum and research
  • Elaboration and implementation of common research projects [1][2]
  • Collect best practices on entrepreneurial education, elaborate new syllabus and curriculum on entrepreneurship [3]
  • Provide policy advise in the field of national entrepreneurship and SME policies, especially in such regions as Central and Eastern Europe, Black Sea Economic Cooperation, and South-Eastern Europe[4]
  • Organising conferences, workshops, seminars in the field of entrepreneurship and SME-development issues, e.g. for the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation[5] in cooperation with Konrad Adenauer Foundation, in cooperation with European Council of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ECSB),[6] etc.
  • Promotion of exchange of their professors, researchers, and possibly students
  • Develop an Internet-based quarterly publication called ERENET Profile[7] which is collected in the Library of Congress as a reliable information source on enterprise development in Eastern and South Eastern Europe.

According to international practice, ERENET is an international unregistered non-profit non-governmental organization. Members participate in specific projects, support each other's events, and contribute with their scientific research results and publications to common intellectual capital. The coordination of the international network is undertaken by the Hungarian membership organisation. The managing agent (called Permanent Secretariat) is the Small Business Development Centre at the Corvinus University of Budapest. The network is moderated and the activities are organized by the Scientific Director of the ERENET. In 2009, the Institut Ekonomskih Nauka (Institute for Economic Sciences, Belgrade)[8] became the ERENET South-Eastern Secretariat. The Plenary Organization is the Annual Meeting. ERENET has an Executive Board which consists of the members of the International Board of the periodical ERENET Profile. There is no membership fee in the network. The free of charge membership significantly contributed that members from the CIS and SEE countries could join ERENET.

References
  1. Common project of ERENET and SINTEF The Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research at the Norwegian Institute of Technology, Project description, http://www.erenet.org/sintef.pdf
  2. Antal Szabó, Education for Entrepreneurship, ICELM 3 Conference, Targu-Mures 2008, http://www.upm.ro/proiecte/EEE/Conferences/papers/S601.pdf
  3. Antal Szabó, The Role of the ERENET Network in Harmonazing the University Entrepreneurial Education Syllabus, ERENET profile no. 22, 2011, p. 3 ff. http://www.erenet.org/publications/profile22.pdf
  4. Antal Szabó, Irina Y. Naoumova et al., Entrepreneurship and SME Development in the BSEC Region, Istanbul 2007, http://www.erenet.org/country/bsec2009.pdf
  5. BSEC, Workshop on Entrepreneurial Education for SMEs, Belgrade, 13–15 October 2010, Summary Proceedings, http://www.bsec-organization.org/aoc/smes/Reports/SUMPROC%20FINALFINAL%2015oct.pdf Archived 2012-03-20 at the Wayback Machine
  6. Policy forum of the 23rd RENT Conference: Entrepreneurship in times of crisis, http://www.uni-corvinus.hu/index.php?id=16353&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Bpointer%5D=3&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=3205&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=7770&cHash=78f1d27cef%5B%5D
  7. "IMembers of Erenet". Erenet.org. Retrieved 2012-08-13.
  8. http://www.ien.bg.ac.rs Website of Institut Ekonomskih Nauka

Further reading
  • Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in the Caucasian Countries in Transition. UNECE, Geneva, 2006 by Antal Szabó.
  • Strategies for the Development of Entrepreneurship and the SME Sector in the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Region. Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. Istanbul, November 2007.
  • Zsuzsanna Katalin Szabó, Antal Szabó, Comparative Study on Entrepreneurship Education. National Case Studies. Kosice (Slovakia), 2009.
  • Antal Szabó (ed.), Emerging entrepreneurship and the policy development in the BSEC after the economic crises. Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. Ankara, 2012, ISBN 978-975-7968-99-3.
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