Incubators and Accelerators in Ireland: understanding their impact and their role in the society

Incubators and Accelerators in France: understanding their impact and their role in the society The Entrepreneurship has always played a key role regarding economic and social development. Moreover, in recent years there has been an increase of entities which provide business support through tangible and intangible assets. The relative aid is not only assertible to physical space provided, but also related to entrepreneurial courses, teaching young inventors on managerial aspects, helping them regarding financial needs and funds, but also access to new markets, legal advice and so on. Those entities who support new startup ventures are called: Business incubators. The incubators are a good instrument in order to support local businesses, improve the technology and bust innovation (Aernoudt, 2004). In fact, it is not a coincidence that in the last decades the new technologies and innovation significantly increased, and simultaneously, more and more business incubator and accelerators were established all over the word every year. In Ireland incubators as a tool for encouraging innovation are strongly supported by the government, also promoting various programs with a positive social and environmental impact. The aim of this thesis is to analyse and understand how the incubators and accelerators in Ireland are distributed and its differences with respect to the English one. This research has been carried out by the SIM (Social Innovation Monitor). The outcome of this research, combined with other similar ones carried out in different countries all over Europe (i.e. Spain, Germany, Italy, France) will describe an overview of the spread and diffusion of incubators in the continent, and their effectiveness regarding the entrepreneurial and innovation field. In the first part of this thesis there will be an introduction regarding business incubators and accelerators, the different typologies between them, a rapid overview of their distribution in Europe with a focus on the Irish and English territory, and finally, the analysis of the research, the relative results and conclusions.