EBN EU

11:15 CET EBN News EU|BIC Services News All EU|BIC Community members rally around our four mission commitments: regional development quality business support access to finance internationalisation The data here reflects the impact this community of 110 certified EU|BICs had in a single year, 2025. It is organised by mission commitments, structuring how impactfully the community fulfilled its mission.

European startups internationalise at a lower rate than their counterparts in other leading innovation economies. The numbers tell a story. Europe creates more tech startups each year than the United States, around 15,200 against 13,700. But the pipeline does not hold. The EU accounts for only 8% of the world’s scale-ups, against 60% in North America. Seven in ten European SMEs operated only in their home country in 2024. Just 26% exported to other EU countries.

Europe has never lacked entrepreneurial talent. Across our regions, innovative companies are developing breakthrough technologies, pioneering sustainable solutions, and creating new business models that address some of society’s most pressing challenges. Yet innovation alone is rarely enough to build globally competitive businesses. For Europe’s scale-ups, internationalisation is no longer an option. It is a necessity. But it remains a big challenge, still.

As part of the Lebanon Innovate programme, participants from Lebanon took part in a soft-landing study visit to France, gaining first-hand experience of European innovation and technology transfer ecosystems. The visit included meetings at IncubAlliance and Grand Nancy, where participants explored how innovation support organisations, business incubation services, and regional technology transfer structures operate in practice.

Personae by EU|BIC a|cube was voted winner of the 2026 EU|BIC Excellence Award: The Human Factor, chosen by the audience at EBN Congress 2026 in Trentino. This year’s award, the third edition of the EU|BIC Excellence Awards, asked EU|BICs a direct question: what does it mean to build a programme that puts people at the centre by design? The response was strong. EU|BIC community members submitted programmes that took that challenge seriously.

18:12 CET EU|BIC News We look forward to welcoming the EU|BIC Community to Portugal on 23–25 June 2027, co-organised with two local EU|BICs: Instituto Pedro Nunes and Startup Leiria. Next year’s EBN Congress will be held in Portugal, bringing together EU|BIC members, innovation professionals, and ecosystem builders from across Europe and beyond.

CEEI-Burgos-microcredits-programme In Burgos, there is a microcredit programme that does something most financial institutions will not. It lends to rural entrepreneurs without collateral, guarantees, or the assumption that a business in a village of 300 people is too small to matter. The loan comes with hands-on technical support from application through to repayment. It is a loan that deeply connects the lender with people and places.

PERSONAE_EBN-2026-AWARD-shared-1_compressed Welfare systems across Europe are under growing pressure. Ageing populations, new forms of vulnerability, shifting family structures, and rising demand around mental health and work-life balance are straining public provision. The welfare sector has historically been slow to attract entrepreneurial innovation.

12a-FatorCIdade_EBN_AWARD Age is one of the strongest barriers to employment. People over 50 who are out of the labour market have a difficult time getting back in, despite decades of experience to offer. Instituto Pedro Nunes (IPN) decided to tackle this issue as an entrepreneurial opportunity. Fator C’Idade is the first senior and impact entrepreneurship incubator in Portugal.

14_MSIC-2 The Moravian-Silesian Region has long struggled with a negative migration balance. Skilled people leave. Young people leave. International professionals who arrive for work find the system hard to navigate: language barriers, administrative complexity, limited guidance, and little support for their families. In 2020, the region had one of the lowest shares of entrepreneurs in Czechia. Its economy needed transformation, but the talent needed was walking out the door.