Focusing on a disruptive strategy, bringing together multiple contributions from the most recent strategies and methodologies for supporting entrepreneurship, the aim of the Restartup project is to transfer knowledge that is crucial for the sustainable development of SMEs, for stimulating skilled entrepreneurship and for the emergence of new businesses with extremely high potential. This aspiration is brought to life in the form of making the right tools available for accelerating business projects, building cooperation networks involving specialised mentors and technicians, promoting advanced coaching programmes and networking campaigns and, from a unifying perspective, publishing informational and training contents.

The aim then is to inspire new entrepreneurs and to promote, streamline and enhance the links between universities and companies, facilitating the promotion of the disruptive innovation that culminates in the birth of new startups that are competitive globally. In fact, Restartup has taken on the mission of identifying and supporting a new generation of globally-oriented startups, based on some priority areas defined under the scope of the regional smart specialisation strategy.

RESTARTUP is financed by Portugal 2020, under Norte 2020 – North Regional Operational Programme, with funds from the European Union, through the European Regional Development Fund.

 

Objectives

Five-point Intervention Strategy

The operational aims of Restartup correspond to the five-point intervention embraced by the ANJE, U.Porto and TecMinho consortium, which thus focuses on some of the priority areas of the regional smart specialisation strategy, seeking always to improve results through connections with the five main international ecosystems providing support for startups.

 

1

Promoting/enhancing the national innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem.

 

2

Enhancing and supporting the appearance of new products and services that are competitive worldwide.

 

3

Building and expanding strategic global links.

 

4

Working towards facilitating the internationalisation process for high-potential companies.

 

5

Boosting economic growth and skilled employment.

 

 

TEAM

Restartup is a project that is co-promoted by ANJE – National Association of Young Entrepreneurs, the University of Porto and TecMinho – University-Company Development Association. This comes in the form of cooperation between players whose activities are complementary, sustained by the sharing of a vision and ambition on a global scale.

 

ANJE

 

ANJE – National Association of Young Entrepreneurs is a public interest association under private law and, since 1986, it has been institutionally representing young Portuguese entrepreneurs and providing them with support for their business activities. It was, in fact, a pioneer in promoting young entrepreneurship in Portugal and, in recent years, it has stood out for encouraging the adoption of business models based on innovation, research and development. ANJE focuses its efforts on what is called skilled entrepreneurship in order to create the conditions for young people to convert their knowledge into business value. To this end, the association provides 11 incubators/accelerators for companies, as well as specialised monitoring on training, management, financing and business innovation processes. With around 5,500 associates, over fifty employees, ten operational areas and several regional centres (North, Centre, Lisbon and the Tagus Valley, the Alentejo and the Algarve), ANJE's work is of undeniable public relevance.

UNIVERSITY OF PORTO

 

Founded in 1911, the University of Porto is a benchmark educational and scientific research institution in Portugal. It is now among the 150 best European universities in some of the most important rankings for Higher Education. Combining quality education, focused on individual vocations, and market needs and known as the biggest scientific "cradle" in Portugal, U.Porto is an institution committed to turning the talent and innovation present in its 14 faculties, one business school and 50 research centres into an asset for society. Currently, U.Porto is the most international of Portuguese universities, as a result of a strategy that has cooperative ties with hundreds of higher education institutions in the four corners of the globe. Its ambitions include putting the university among the 100 best universities in the world by 2020.

 

TECMINHO

 

Founded in 1990, TecMinho is a non-profit association under private law and it is promoted by the University of Minho and the Vale do Ave Association of Municipalities (AMAVE). TecMinho is one of the oldest university structures for knowledge transfer in Portugal. As a University of Minho interface, TecMinho's vision is to add value and transfer knowledge to the business fabric and to the other economic and social players, contributing to innovation, entrepreneurship and the development of skills in organisations and in people. TecMinho's mission is fulfilled through the pursuit of the following main lines of intervention: Support for the development of new technology/products/processes and transferring these to companies; Designing and implementing education and training activities (onsite and through e-learning), for organisational development and transnational mobility of human resources; Support for university entrepreneurship and the creation of innovative companies, with a special emphasis on academic spin-offs.