According to Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan, to bring Europe back to growth and higher levels of employment, Europe needs more entrepreneurs. It confirms once more that one of the most important factors for success of a start-up is the entrepreneurial knowledge, skills and will of its founder or entrepreneurial founding team. RE-ENTER addresses the needs of older entrepreneurs (45+) for improved entrepreneurial skills and support, in different phases of entrepreneurial venture – from developing a business idea and plan, to establishing a company and during its first steps in the market, and taking full advantage of intergenerational learning through interaction with young entrepreneurs.

“Older workers have a wealth of skills and experience, e.g. 400,000 unemployed over 45 have on average around 25 years of experience each, we are missing out on 10 million years of experience.” This enormous wealth of skills and experiences, that are not only beneficial to the economy, but will help to teach the next generation of workers.

The project aims to understand the motivation and the skills most needed by the potential and new entrepreneurs of people 45+, particularly in the partner countries.

The 45+ entrepreneurs have good knowledge of their sector and relevant expertise in their line of work, they lack, however, the specific skills and knowledge for starting-up and running a successful and sustainable business, so they need more exposure to entrepreneurship, they have the skills and experience to make a success of their new enterprise and, more importantly, this in combination with their maturity can reduce the risk of failure.