RE-FEM Upskilling pathways for REsiliency in the post-Covid era for FEMale Entrepreneurs
| Ref./Contract no | 2022-1-HU01-KA220-ADU-000089295 |
| Funding programme | Erasmus+ Programme |
| Duration | 36 months |
| Start year-end year | 2022-2025 |
| Website | Refem.eu |
Summary
Women entrepreneurs still constitute only 1/3rd of entrepreneurs in the EU Member States; the COVID-19 pandemic has even worsened women entrepreneurs’ situation in maintaining their businesses and posed further challenges in reconciling work and private life. In these challenging times, it is of utmost importance to empower women entrepreneurs, especially those with fewer opportunities, facing obstacles to receiving meaningful support in implementing and further developing their business plans, to upskill their competencies for becoming flexible, resilient, improve digital skills and to effectively apply crisis management strategies.
RE-FEM aims to empower women entrepreneurs through need-based training for maintaining resilient businesses in the post-covid era. The project also wants to serve the needs of the trainers and mentors in business support and entrepreneurship working in the field of adult education by providing easily accessible, high quality and transformative training tools.
This project is the continuation of the iFEMPOWER project coordinated by HETFA between 2018-2021.
Activities and outputs
The implementation of RE-FEM consists of several interlinked activities in order to provide efficient entrepreneurial development for women through research, needs-based, high-quality training materials, e-learning modules and establishing an international network group for all the target groups involved in the project.
● The partnership first conducted a comparative research (Project result 1) to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges women entrepreneurs have to face in the post-pandemic area focusing on specific aspects of the situation of women with fewer opportunities.
● Based on the research result, partners’ expertise and knowledge in developing adult education, the partnership developed an inclusive and accessible Training Manual (Project result 2) with training materials and methodologies, and an Open Education Platform with an online course for entrepreneurship training (Project result 3). The training materials and online course will be tested and introduced to the wider public through pilot training and public stakeholder events in all partner countries.
● During the project, the partnership lays the foundation for an international network, where women entrepreneurs, associated partners and consortium members can connect, build relationships, learn from each other and find partners for their future projects.
● RE-FEM will formulate policy recommendations to define directions for adult education, entrepreneurship, and the labour market to support women entrepreneurs in building and managing resilient businesses in the age of digital transformation. The recommendations will be summarised in a ‘Policy Study’ (Project result 4).
While the RE-FEM project is still in progress, some of the Project Results are already available:
PR1 – Research Report | PR2 – Training Manual | PR3 – Online Education Platform (OEP)
Partnership
RE-FEM gathers 1 Higher Education Institute, 2 research institute, 2 public body, 2 business supporting NGO and 1 individual entrepreneur.
Coordinator
Partners
Andalucía Emprende Fundación Pública Andaluza (ES)
Brand-Sofi (FI)
Mihajlo Pupin Institute (SRB)
Regional Agency for Entrepreneurship and Innovations (BG)
Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania (RO)
SEED Foundation (HU)
Contact & more info
For more information about the project, please contact:
obornikatalin@hetfa.hu
hetfa_re-fem@hetfa.hu
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RE-FEM project at the 2024 Women Entrepreneurs’ Day
This year, HÉTFA Research Institute co-organised the Women Entrepreneurs’ Day event, where the research results of the RE - FEM project provided the framework for the roundtable discussion we led. In 2024, the Hungarian Women Entrepreneurs’ Day event was held on 19th...
Digitalization as a resilience strategy for women owned SMEs during crises – publication about RE-FEM research results
The research conducted as part of the RE-FEM Erasmus+ project provides insightful information on what difficulties women entrepreneurs faced during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic or the energy crisis, and how they faced these challenges. Dr. Katalin Oborni, Dr....
Join the Erasmus+ Days webinar of the RE-FEM project on the 17th of October
During the Erasmus+ Days, we’ll be showcasing 3 successful EU-funded projects that empower women entrepreneurs and hosting a round-table session on how to create impactful, sustainable programs that truly meet their needs. For more details, visit the event on the...
The 3rd Transnational Meeting of RE-FEM was successfully held
The 3rd transnational online meeting of the ‘RE-FEM – Upskilling pathways for REsiliency in the post-Covid era for FEMale Entrepreneurs’ (2022-1-HU01-KA220-ADU-000089295) project was held on 17-19 September 2024 with the involvement of all 8 partners. The RE-FEM...
The 3rd Newsletter of the RE-FEM project is now available!
Currently we are halfway through the RE-FEM project, we have published our Research Results, presented RE-FEM at several external events, and our partners are actively working on the Training Manuals. If you would like to know more about the Research Results, the...
RE-FEM project Research Report published on the project website
The RE-FEM project consortium has reached an important milestone, the publishing of the Research Report. The report provides results on the impact of COVID-19 and all other crises that came after the pandemic and affected women entrepreneurs. The report is available...
Invitation to Participate in a Survey targeted Women Entrepreneurs
In the framework of the RE-FEM project HETFA Research Institute and its partners have developed a survey that aims to gather valuable insights and perspectives from women entrepreneurs to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges they face after the Covid-19...
RE-FEM project successfully kicked-off in Bratislava
The consortium of the ‘RE-FEM – Upskilling pathways for REsiliency in the post-Covid era for FEMale Entrepreneurs’ (2022-1-HU01-KA220-ADU-000089295) project gathered for the first time. The 2-day kick-off meeting was successfully held on 15-16 December 2022 with the...
HETFA launches a new project about supporting women entrepreneurs with the award of €400,000 from the Erasmus+ Programme
HETFA is delighted to announce that our commitment to make entrepreneurial development for women more efficient has made a decisive step forward, with the award of €400,000 from the Erasmus+ Programme. The project entitled “RE-FEM - Upskilling pathways for REsiliency...