Project debuting
The regional economy is suffering from a severe shortage of (qualified) workers. It is becoming increasingly difficult for companies to find and retain employees and apprentices. Demographic change will further aggravate the situation in the coming decades, especially, but not only, in the rural areas of Lower Austria.
In Austria, an above-average number of women work part-time or as self-employed in areas such as health and care, education. Girls and women are underrepresented in technical-engineering education and especially in technical professions (only 9% women). This situation has various causes and effects. Entrepreneurs, especially SMEs, lack awareness or knowledge of how to introduce new approaches to work, a new work culture, that will enable them to attract and retain talent in the region, e.g.: by better targeting women as potential workers.
The Lower Austrian Clusters have recognized this challenge and are addressing it with the tools at their disposal to raise awareness of the importance of gender equality approaches in industry for innovation, sustainability and competitiveness: Needs assessments, awareness raising, initiating collaborative workshops to help companies identify and develop possible courses of action. Through interregional exchange and learning, these actions and related monitoring will be improved and further developed. The capacities of regional decision makers, cluster managers and companies will be increased.
The project DEBUTING with 11 project partners from 10 regions, aims to improve 10 policy instruments to (better) address gender equality in industry and help at least 10% of SMEs in clusters to become more competitive by 2026. We want to ...
- Increase the business capacity of more than 7,500 SMEs by enabling them to develop more innovative business models through a more inclusive culture.
- Raise awareness of the potential of applying gender equality approaches through the clusters.
- Increase the effectiveness of existing interventions, design new, more innovative interventions, and improve monitoring and evaluation through appropriate indicators.
- Increase awareness and capacity of policy makers and clusters to consider gender equality in industry as a critical factor for SME growth and competitiveness.
Added value for Lower Austria
Increasing Lower Austria's international visibility, interregional exchange, broadening awareness of the importance of gender equality approaches in industry for innovation, sustainability to support Lower Austrian SMEs in their competitiveness. Promoting gender equality and inclusion as a crucial factor for competitiveness in Lower Austria.
NEW WORK: Creating a new corporate culture/ general rethinking of corporate values to make it easier to get employees and also to keep them.
Project Consortium:
Lead Partner Region Värmland Karlstad, Sweden
PP02 / Advisory Partner Karlstad University Karlstad, Sweden
PP03 Lapland Regional Council Rovaniemi, Finland
PP04 Regional Development Agency North- West Cluj- Napoca, Romania
PP05 ecoplus. The Business Agency of Lower Austria St. Pölten, Austria
PP06 Ministry of Finance Budapest, Hungary
PP07 ART-ER Joint Stock Consortium Company Bologna, Italy
PP08 Navarra Development Agency (SODENA) Pamplona, Spain
PP09 Pomorskie Voivodeship Gdansk, Poland
PP10 Grand E-nov+ Mulhouse, France
PP11 RegioClusterAgentur BW, hosted by VDI/VDE-IT GmbH Stuttgart, Germany
Further information: www.interregeurope.eu/DEBUTING
