JemsBRIDGE
Priority Axis 1: Smart investments in research, innovation and competitive entrepreneurship
Operation start date: 1 September 2026
Operation completion date: 31 August 2028
Budget: EUR 705.138,60
Number of partners: 3
Operation purpose and expected achievements:
The BRIDGE project aims to strengthen regional innovation and entrepreneurship capacities across Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro by establishing a sustainable cross-border innovation network. The project focuses on transforming three local innovation hubs into modern equipped hubs with advanced digital technologies, creating living labs for testing innovative solutions and supporting entrepreneurial development. Through the introduction of an BRIDGE AI-enabled cross-border innovation support platform, the project will connect start-ups, mentors, investors, and innovation stakeholders across the Programme area. Joint boot camps, mentoring programmes, and hackathons will support young entrepreneurs in developing market-ready solutions and improving their business potential. By combining jointly validated service model, enabling hub equipment and one interoperable digital solution embedded in the regular work of the three partner organisations, BRIDGE will contribute to reducing the innovation gap, retaining local talent, and creating a stronger ecosystem for competitive and investment-ready ventures.
Beneficiaries:
The Lead Partner (LP), City of Živinice (BA), is responsible for the overall coordination and management of the project. It leads the establishment of the Innovation Hub in Živinice, through the implementation LP will contribute its practical experience in providing local innovation-support services and will define the requirements for hub-service integration, platform administration, local user support and the involvement of entrepreneurs, start-ups, mentors and other users from Živinice. Also, LP will organise the participation of relevant users and mentors in the bootcamp-based testing of the draft model of the platform.
Municipality of Bar (ME) is responsible for establishing the Digital Hub and coordination the preparation of the functional model and specification of the BRIDGE platform workflows.PP2 will provide the functional-modelling service, expert trainer, local API and test-bed configuration, and will coordinate the preparation of the common pilot plan, testing scenarios and hackathon content. It leads digital innovation activities, supports entrepreneurs through training and pilot actions, and contributes to stakeholder engagement and the long-term sustainability of project results.
Development Agency of Slavonski Brod (HR) is responsible for strengthening the cross-border innovation ecosystem through capacity-building and mentoring activities. PP3 will contribute the common bootcamp curriculum, mentor-coordination methodology, participant-feedback approach and usability-testing platform requirements. Its contribution will ensure that the functional model can be tested through a consistent learning, mentoring and feedback process in all three territories.
