The concept of the entrepreneurship is facing multiple challenges, driven by а combination of fundamental changes such as climate change and biodiversity loss, new poverty, and digital divide among younger population cohorts, need for structural reforms and a substantial decrease of institutional trust. Complemented by the traditional pressure of innovation competition and globalization these developments will lead to substantial implications for governments, administrations, and business decision-makers, for industry and academia, for community and social groups. Notably, these fundamental changes open opportunities for the young generation to explore the field of business, management, information sciences and data analysis, economics, and social sciences, particularly for interdisciplinary collaborations among them.

While in the last two decades in Europe, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial potential re-emerged аз а key item in the political and economic agenda, we are still in process of adopting а new growth model for unlocking regional potential via sustainable youth entrepreneurial activities. In this process of (re-) vitalizing youth entrepreneurship, four inter-linked components are considered аз аn important: 1) regional development actors and the relationships emerging at institutional and civil level; 2) business environment factors and specific constraints; 3) enabling institutional support (incl. local authorities, community support), and 4) economic, social, and environmental trends.

YOUthCAP analysis is purposeful towards the design of innovative entrepreneurial ecosystems that are built upon locally established development paths and facilitate sustainable business models, social business models and partnerships that go beyond the old-fashioned pattern of public-private collaborations by integrating NGOs and crowd-sourcing based initiatives. Fresh insights on youth entrepreneurship are identified in the partner countries related to resource efficiency, improved market solutions and services аз well аз enhanced life cycle and innovation development. However, most of these contributions provide evidence on a phenomenological-descriptive level only. Moreover, taking a well-identified disciplinary view (e.g., opportunity exploitation, risk-taking, marketing or finance) broad range implications to be revealed by interdisciplinary studies are missed. Efforts to prioritize youth entrepreneurial development, at any stage of the value chain or governance level, lack а central, convincing argument: the ability to calculate and foresee what impact entrepreneurship will bring and for whom. Costs and benefits of persistent problems and their potential solutions are distributed unevenly across different industries. It is therefore a comprehensive framework needed to provide directions for structural reforms for competitiveness and productivity, for improvement of the business climate.

What do young people need? How do our reality and conditions reflect their needs, interests and aspirations for development? What are the challenges facing us in the process of stimulating innovation and entrepreneurial activity among young generation? We are looking for answers to all these questions in our “Skill gap analysis on capacity of youth organizations and identifying knowledge required for youth professional realization”. The analysis is purposeful towards the design of innovative entrepreneurial ecosystems that are built upon locally established development paths and facilitate sustainable business models, social business models and partnerships that go beyond the old-fashioned pattern of public-private collaborations by integrating NGOs and crowd-sourcing based initiatives.

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