The entrepreneurship centre of the Barcelona Council, Activa was awarded the Grand Jury Prize selected for its innovative entrepreneurial support and training actions leading to the creation of 6,214 new businesses and 11,800 jobs, on the 5th European Enterprise Awards for Job Creation Initiative. The prize recognizes a successful and innovative way of promoting entrepreneurship.

The European Enterprise Awards ceremony took place during the Small Business Act conference “Mobilising SMEs for the Future of Europe” in Budapest which is jointly organized by the European Commission, the Hungarian EU Presidency and the Committee of the Regions. Created in 2006, the European Enterprise Awards award excellence in promoting entrepreneurship and small business at a national, regional and local level.

This year, 399 projects from 29 countries, 24 EU Member States and Croatia, Iceland, Norway, Turkey and Serbia, competed in national competitions to demonstrate how their initiatives have furthered the facilitation of business and boosted their region’s economy.

In this occasion, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and Turkey also received prizes for driving enterprise with new and creative local solutions. In particular, the six winners of the European Enterprise Awards 2011 edition are:

• Grand Jury’s Prize: Barcelona Activa, Barcelona City Council, Spain. This entrepreneurship centre has become a reference point for the city's entrepreneurs and acts as a hub for entrepreneurship. Using an innovative model of both online and on-site services, the centre has coached more than 134,000 individuals.
• Promoting the Entrepreneurial Spirit Category: The project “Together we can do more!” Beekeeping, Honey Production, Forests and Sustainable development, Düzce University, Turkey has turned the discovery of a unique bee species into an opportunity to help the local economy by training disadvantaged groups in beekeeping.
• Investment in Skills Category: The Centre for Amsterdam Schools for Entrepreneurship (CASE, the Netherlands), is a unique example of multidisciplinary entrepreneurship education through real-life practice in all faculties and all levels of study for local university students.
• Improving Business Environment Category: The E-factory (Uppsala, Sweden), a rural entrepreneurship project based on a public-private partnership, has found creative solutions to create jobs and companies in rural Uppsala County by offering advice and micro-credit provided by the local population.
• Internationalisation of Business Category: Rethinking the Product is an initiative of the Chamber of Commerce of Prato (Italy) to encourage product experimentation and help companies find new uses and markets for their products.
• Responsible and Inclusive Entrepreneurship: Hotel Panda, in Budapest, Hungary uses a unique training and employment model to integrate disabled people into the business world. With 95% of its staff disabled, the hotel has doubled its profits, proving that it is possible to combine successfully social goals with a profitable business performance.The Jury’s special mention has been awarded to “Mentoring for Migrants”, Vienna, Austria; a project which supports qualified workers of ethnic background with their integration into the Austrian labour market.

The European Enterprise Awards is created to boost policies that promote entrepreneurship and create a favourable environment for business, in particular small and medium-sized enterprises. The prize is given annually.