RE-FEM – Upskilling pathways for REsiliency in the post-Covid era for FEMale Entrepreneurs

The RE-FEM – ‘Upskilling pathways for REsiliency in the post-Covid era for FEMale Entrepreneurs’ project is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.( GA no. 2022-1-HU01-KA220-ADU-000089295)
 

 

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. 

Duration of the project: 01/11/2022 – 31/10/2025
 

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 will first conduct 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 will develop 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 will lay 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).

 

Project partnership

RE-FEM gathers 1 Higher Education Institute, 2 research institute, 2 public body, 2 business supporting NGO and 1 individual entrepreneur.

HÉTFA Research Institute (HU) | Coordinator

SEED Foundation (HU)

Slovak Business Agency (SK)