Incubate will support inclusive entrepreneurial discovery in northern peripheral and sparsely populated communities by developing and implementing start-up incubators that nurture local innovation in NPA communities that could be prone to being dominated by single industries, and for individuals who might not otherwise have the opportunity to establish a business on their own. The incubators will create a common transnational support network, which allows for exchange of ideas among our communities and entrepreneurs, as well as creating a project learning platform for sharing with other NPA communities. A triple-helix approach to the project will be promoted by including research institutes and SMEs directly in the project. By improving the entrepreneurial business environment in particular communities, the local incubators offer a start-up support system to nurture SME development. The incubators will provide local entrepreneurs with access to training, advice and support for developing and marketing their ideas, as well as opportunities for start-up funding. This will seek to reduce the barriers and bottlenecks for entrepreneurs trying to establish SMEs and support the local people in their aspirations to make the living in remote regions. The local areas will share the commonality of being peripheral communities and having a dominant private sector industrial presence, but the specifics of each incubator will be determined by the local constellation of the stakeholders and existing facilities in each community. A focus of these incubators will be on developing and monetising the ideas of local residents in order to contribute to a more balanced and diverse economic base. Entrepreneurial initiatives from nature-based and creative activities will be emphasised, including indigenous lifestyles such as products and services from reindeer herding; arts and fashion; small-scale farming and food processing; and outdoor recreation and other experience economy services. The incubators will specifically target entrepreneurial discovery for young people and women. A second core component will be the development of a Local Smart Specialisation (LS3) platform for local communities in the NPA area. The LS3 concept has been developed by the REGINA project as a comprehensive set of tools and knowledge for communities to create strategies that increase their preparedness when facing the development of large-scale, resource-based industries. The tools were developed around three main themes demography and labour market, land use and society, and business development to establish a series of planning tools. Incubate will prioritise place-based entrepreneurial discovery and will create transferable knowledge about the experiences of creating local innovation incubators. This information will be combined with planning tools and experiential knowledge created by REGINA as a comprehensive LS3 platform.
