Selected applicants will benefit from mentoring with experienced business owners
The British-Portuguese Chamber of Commerce (BPCC) is now in its 10th year acting as an Intermediary Organisation of the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme which supports nascent entrepreneurs by arranging mentoring experiences with experienced business owners in another European country.
To qualify as a nascent or New Entrepreneur (NE), individuals need to have a viable business plan and the intention to open their own company or have already founded or co-founded their own business within the past three years.
Once their application has been approved by us, they will have access to a database of available hosts (Host Entrepreneurs=HE) throughout Europe.
NEs and HEs then establish contact with each other to explore potential compatibility and whether their objectives can be aligned. HEs are experienced business owners which have first-hand experience of the challenges of starting a company from scratch and a willingness to share their experience and expertise for the benefit of supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs.
These business exchanges are for a minimum of one month and a maximum of six months in any European country (not just the EU – but excluding the UK as a consequence of Brexit!).
BPCC holds funds to support outbound NEs from Portugal (nationality is irrelevant so long as evidence of at least six months can be provided). Each destination country has a different cost of living tariff but ranges from €600 to €1200 per month. Not only does the BPCC support outbound Portuguese NEs, but we also welcome foreign NEs who will stay with Portuguese hosts.
Almost all sectors are eligible, and we have overseen exchanges in agriculture, digital music composers, app developers, event management, language schools, construction and photography – but by far the most popular category in recent years has been architecture.
From February, a sister programme will be launched which will accommodate exchanges for a maximum of three months to the non-EU destination countries of USA, Canada, Singapore and the UK.
For further details of the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme, see www.erasmus-entrepreneurs.eu or contact Chris Barton on c.barton@bpcc.pt
For examples of previous success stories, click here.
By British-Portuguese Chamber of Commerce
