Eight partners from five European countries participated in the Erasmus+ project, coordinated by Luxembourg’s Association of Parents of Children with intellectual Disabilities (Association des Parents des Enfants Mentalement Handicapés, APEMH Foundation) and supported by the Association for Research and Training on Integration in Europe (Association de Recherche et de Formation sur l’Insertion en Europe, ARFIE). The partnership developed a 36-month action plan around three main axes: (i) developing a set of activities to cluster challenges for people with intellectual disabilities to access entrepreneurship, and a methodology to overcome this; (ii) testing a set of activities to put that methodology into practice; and (iii) evaluating the results and their impact on the community and the beneficiaries.

The co-production approach created a space where all stakeholders could share their knowledge and skills on an equal footing. This triggered a mutual learning effort that helped all participants and facilitated the project goals. It also brought a change of perspective, expanding the concept of enterprise to embrace something creative, personally fulfilling and validating, particularly where it requires courage. The project enhanced equal opportunities and recommended specific policy initiatives for people with disabilities to foster access to entrepreneurship and social inclusion. This allowed for sustainable behavioural change for the target group by increasing their self-confidence, enhancing their level of autonomy and facilitating a more active role in entrepreneurship. 

[1] An incubator is an organisation that helps new and start-up companies to develop by providing support services and enabling access to the resources they need. In the context of IN-CUBA however, incubator is defined as a support for the development of projects and ideas.

[2] For the purposes of the IN-CUBA project, co-production is defined as a way of doing that sees all actors (people with intellectual disability, their families, experts, local representatives) involved as equal contributors towards the same goal in order to reach a collective and participative outcome, i.e., an inclusive and participatory way of developing and delivering services.

The IN-CUBA project achieved its aim of improving professionals’ skills, creating new opportunities and increasing users’ self-development. It also went beyond its initial aim by triggering a process of personal growth for the beneficiaries and service providers (increasing their self-confidence and fostering a change of perspective on opportunities).

Approximately 100 beneficiaries (twenty from each partner country) participated in the various stages (interviews, focus groups, workshops, etc.), accompanied by three educators, a professional expert in entrepreneurship, one family member and a representative from the local community (where possible).

Eight interconnected results (the so-called Intellectual Outputs) were developed by the end of the project:

IO1 - Users’ needs and requirements: This output focuses on the results of the ENABLE project[1] and the experiences of the partners involved, as well as on the situation of entrepreneurship for people with disabilities, in particular focusing on the existing literature at European and International level.  

IO2 - Report: levers and obstacles in the access to entrepreneurship for people with intellectual disabilities: this output, which is a research survey, points out to what extent entrepreneurship is accessible at European level for people with intellectual disability, and what the main barriers are in this regard. It also shows what are the systems in place, to what extent they are accessible, and what development opportunities could be envisaged in terms of entrepreneurship for people with intellectual disability.

IO3 - Business incubator toolkit: co-productive methodology: This was the main output of the project and consisted in a methodology based on co-production to support the development of ideas and projects to transform them into entrepreneurial projects.This output is the result of 3 components: 20%: Inputs from experts and incubators; 20%: Results of a European survey; 60%: Co-productive Focus Groups organised in each country involved to discuss with users, their families, experts, and representative of the community, enterprises and the support that is needed to set up an activity. The result of these 3 components is a methodology for incubation divided in 5 steps: 1) Enabling, empowering (triggering potential); 2) Collecting, generating and developing ideas; 3) Idea development; 4) Stabilisation; 5) Feasibility, Impact, Evaluation.

IO4 - Pilot actions: testing of the methodology: This output summarises the results of the pilot action that tested the co-productive methodology developed in IO3. The pilot, implemented through co-productive focus groups, was a very important phase of the project as it allowed to put into practice the elements elaborated by the partnership and received valuable feedback from all the users involved.

IO5 - Evaluation and impact analysis: This output focuses on the pilot action, which has been evaluated from two different perspectives: a) Quality of life of the persons involved, focusing on how the project fits in their daily activities ; b) Social impact, focusing on whether the activities carried out in the pilot contributed to generating change in society.

IO6 - Video tutorials: The IN-CUBA Methodology has been made accessible in easy to understand video tutorials in all the project languages. The videos are available at:  https://co-production.eu/videos/;

IO7 - Training guidelines: The Methodology has been also enriched by a set of Training Guidelines for educators and trainers in order to make it transferable. The training guidelines are based on the work developed by all partners in the definition and implementation of a co-production methodology that aims to empower persons with disability with tools to create and develop entrepreneurial projects. The guidelines aim to empower professionals working with persons with disability with contents and resources to facilitate the adoption of the co-production methodology for incubation.

IO8 - Publication: outcomes and achievements. The final Intellectual Output takes stock of all the work done during the implementation of IN-CUBA. It reports on the results and main outcomes and concludes with policy recommendations for policy makers and relevant stakeholders with the aim to create a more inclusive labour market focusing on people with intellectual disability.

All Intellectual Outputs are available here.