Target Circular

Supporting Sustainable SMEs to Success (Target Circular) er samstarfsverkefni írskra, norskra, finnskra, sænskra og íslenskra aðila sem snýst um að styrkja rekstrarforsendur lítilla og meðalstórra fyrirtækja, ekki síst þeirra sem vilja leggja áherslu á sjálfbærni, nýta tækifæri til eflingar á stoðþjónustu við þau og nýta nýjustu þekkingu til að fjölga störfum og stuðla að vexti og samkeppnishæfni þeirra. Verkefnið er styrkt af Norðurslóðaáætlun og er ætlað m.a. að þjálfa frumkvöðla og/eða fyrirtæki í að hugsa vörur sínar og þjónustu eins og vísindamenn; að leggja fram tilgátu og prófa áður en farið er af stað. Það gefur þeim tækifæri á að lágmarka áhættu fjárfestinga.

Samstarfsaðilar ætla að þróa efni sem gerir fundi með atvinnuráðgjöfum markvissari og árangursríkari. Verkefnið mun einnig snerta á hvernig og hvaða deililausnir lítil og meðalstór fyrirtæki geta nýtt sér, t.d. að vera með sameiginlegan markaðssérfræðing.

Target Circular is led by Munster Technological University (MTU), with partners in Ireland, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland from each of the three NPA zones. Spanning the NPA area from Hvammstangi to Kokkola, Target Circular builds on the bridging project SSDM also led by MTU adding excellent partners with targeted expertise in the circular economy, business support, including digital services and policymakers.
The partnership involves multipurpose and multidisciplinary organisations, all with one goal – to assist SMEs and entrepreneurs in growth of the sustainable businesses. The project is funded by the Northern Periphery and Arctic Programme.

The project is the essence of transnational cooperation and would not be possible to undertake without a consortium of transnational partners, and diverse stakeholders including Universities, business support organisations, clusters and local government.

Target Circular addresses opportunities in the circular economy, how business support organisations structure their services, and evidence regarding the specifics of what support increases SME success.

The circular economy aims to reduce waste and to keep materials, components, and products in use in the economy for as long as possible. A key circular economy objective is to design the consumption and production systems to create and retain value. For NPA-located SMEs, there is a lack of ‘know-how’ to found and grow a circular economy business, including a lack of awareness of what secondary and bio-based materials exist in their regions and of what services are available to enable their company's growth. Through this project, we will bridge the knowledge siloes and apply scientific best practices and support to businesses that will prioritise long-term sustainable development in the NPA region.

We propose contributing to and supporting the adoption of an innovative evidence-based business support approach, the ‘scientific approach’ of Camuffo et al., (2020, 2021), by NPA businesses support organizations and policymakers. The evidence-based approach utilizes scientific methods and may include facilitating businesses to design effective research questions, design experiments and perform trials. Distinctively, this evidence-based scientific approach encourages businesses to systematically challenge intuitions and assumptions during decision-making. A robust and growing evidence base supports its causal impact on improved entrepreneurial outcomes. These findings indicate that the evidence-based / ‘scientific approach’ achieves three highly desirable outcomes:

1. Businesses can classify ideas as unviable more quickly – reducing ‘wasted’ effort;
2. Facilitates quicker and more focused business model changes (pivoting); and,
3. Results in greater business survival rates and higher revenues compared with those that receive typical intuition driven business support.