EU|BICs are quality-certified business support organisations, which dedicate their efforts and resources to help entrepreneurs with innovative ideas, turn those ideas into viable, successful and sustainable businesses.

EU|BICs were invented almost 30 years ago by the European Commission and by various private and public stakeholders, with the aim to boost the economic development and the innovation potential of European regions. An EU|BIC's core mission is to accelerate innovative entrepreneurship at the local level, through the customised delivery of a comprehensive range of professional support and incubation services (pre-incubation, incubation, post-incubation) targeted at innovative startups, spin-offs, entrepreneurs and SMEs.

An EU|BIC's value chain is classically described as follows: “stimulate, detect, assess, select, incubate, mentor, cluster, accelerate, internationalise”.

EU|BICs are clearly recognisable via the EU|BIC  trademark, which certifies their compliance to a set of standards known as the EU|BIC Quality Mark Criteria, the only quality system recognised by the European Union.

The EU|BIC trademark

Being part of the EU|BIC community means that you are pursuing continuous improvement and this brings a wide array of benefits. Read more...

The EU|BIC Quality System

The EU|BIC Quality system helps EU|BICs and other organisations to enable proper monitoring to take place providing wide opportunities for benchmarking, for promotion, for reporting and for strategic thinking. Read more...

Who can become an EU|BIC

Many different organisations can be labelled as EU|BICs as long as their mission is to foster the creation and growth of innovative entrepreneurs. An EU|BIC can be either independent or exist in larger hosting organisations. Read more...

The EU|BIC certification process

The certification process starts with the fulfilment of the online questionnaire, passes through the implementation of an onsite audit from an EU|BIC expert and is finalised with a decision from the BIC Quality Mark Committee. Read more...

Need help

Access some resources that can help you understand better what is an EU|BIC and how they operate. Read more...