Women entrepreneurs are of high importance for economic and regional development. They are active in research and development, however their participation level in Euro pean research projects and trans-national co-operation is low. This is even more true for women-owned businesses. Part of the problem is that women entrepreneurs are not reached by the mainstream information and support schemes for European Research and Technological Development (EU RTD).

WE-Mentor is building on a partnership of 10 EU member states organised in the consortium of the recently completed project “WomEn2FP6”. Four EU Member states (Belgium, Germany, Italy and
the United Kingdom) take the lead to mentor 4 “new - comers” to the topic of integrating women entrepreneurs into European Research (India, Israel, Romania and Turkey).