ComEnt - Innovative Community Oriented Enterprises 

Community-oriented and social enterprises make an active contribution to the development of sustainable local and regional spaces in many countries. But how can the development of such enterprises be initiated and accompanied? The University of Applied Sciences Vorarlberg (FHV - Vorarlberg University for Applied Sciences) is addressing this issue as part of the Erasmus+ funded project ComEnt - Fostering Innovation in Community Led Enterprise Development. The ComEnt project emerged from the RUN-EU Alliance and is led by the Technological University of the Shannon in Ireland as lead partner. In addition to the Empirical Social Sciences research group at Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences, the other project partners are ACEEU GmbH (Germany), Archivio della Memoria (Italy), Burgas Free University (Bulgaria), ADV Romania Foundation (Romania) and Communities Creating Jobs (Ireland).  

Research and development goals
The research interest of the FHV in this cross-border project is the role of community-oriented enterprises in sustainable community development. The international project team is developing a pioneering curriculum and course materials to promote social enterprises with a focus on participatory development of local and regional spaces. To this end, the FHV in Vorarlberg is developing case studies of impulse-giving practical examples and conducting expert interviews to identify training needs. On a European level, the project will offer a first online certificate course with 10 ECTS in autumn 2023. The academic degree for the degree programme will be awarded by the Technological University of the Shannon in Ireland.