The overall aim of Egoprise is to turn public administrations in rural BSR areas to more business oriented service suppliers, to relieve SMEs from administrative burdens, improve their access to information & qualified staff and as a consequence to increase attractiveness of rural areas as places to live, work & invest in. BACKGROUND:E-government potentials are not exploited so far: The development is technology driven & not targeted at the business sector. The workflow of public bodies is adjusted to internal requirements & not to make best use of e-gov. for customers’ benefit. Multilateral interoperability is not considered. To overcome these shortcomings a transnational cooperation is necessary. OBJECTIVE:Egoprise improves workflows & develops interoperable e-gov. solutions to: a) make public administrations more service oriented for enterprises b) simplify the employment process of (foreign) labour for SMEs & c) provide SMEs easier entrance into public & business networks The transnational PARTNERSHIP with focus on DE; FI, DK, EE & LV reflects: a) National back-up by integrating legislative bodies & political decision makers b) Cross-Sectorality by integrating diff. public levels & umbrella organisations a) Scientific qualification by involving research & training organisation d) Practicability by involving the private sector from the very beginning Summary of ACTIVITIES & MAIN OUTPUTS: a) Surveys to identify the demand of SMEs for improved procedures with the public sector (business registration, employment processes, etc.) b) Analyse workflows in administrations for inefficiencies & frictions c) Recommend workflow changes, cross-check their practicability, implement them in pilot regions d) Develop & implement multilateral interoperable ICT services (e.g. business registration) e) Eliminate red tape in procedures & establish virtual/physical service capacities to facilitate employment processes of (foreign) labour for SMEs f) Develop & install digital greenhouses (virtual meeting points) to foster networking, promotion & information exchange among SMEs with universities & public bodies g) Compile guidelines to ensure transferability of the designed instruments beyond project partnership & start the transfer within the project implementation phase h) Compile action plans preparing necessary changes/adoption of legal frames to ensure durability of the results (to be implemented in a post-project phase) Expected RESULTS: a) Qualified business oriented public administrations, b) Transparent & multilateral interoperable processes between public admin. c) Efficient and coherent workflows in administrations, d) Eased multilateral business registration e) Improved employment & integration of (foreign) staff for SMEs, f) Knowledge/technology transfer into rural areas g) Reduction of urban-rural disparities, i) Unlocked investments in public administrations, j) Increased political awareness of business needs Achievements: Egoprise focuses on the development of end-user oriented eGovernment services. Considering this philosophy, the project identified and selected those processes between public authorities and SMEs, having a high need for optimisation for business end user. For this purpose, BSR wide interviews with SMEs, public authorities, relevant umbrella organisations as well as eGovernment experts were carried out. On top of this a desk research identified most cost-intensive information obligations for SMEs in all BSR Countries & Belarus. Based on the recommendations egoprise finally selected processes / process chains for an in-depth workflow analysis to prepare optimization of the services & workflows for later implementation: DE, LV business registration, EE, DK: building permit, FI: business premises register EE, FI, LV, DE: employment of foreign labour Selecting similar processes in different countries provided the opportunity for cross-country comparisons, -learning and -conclusion drawing. Thanks to a detailed process modelling, specific organisational design potentials for optimizing processes via e-services and workflow reorganizations were identified. All results are summed up in BSR-wide guidelines, published at www.egoprise.eu. For optimized transnational procedures egoprise developed action plans for multilateral business registration and foreign labour employment. The plans describe future scenarios for ideal multilateral processes and provide country wise step-by-step recommendations for technical, organisational and legal changes to set up the ideal cross-border processes. The plans were developed in close cooperation with responsible authorities in the BSR countries. As follow-up of the analyses, the implementation of different E-services and connected to this changes in workflows of pilot authorities started. Some highlights are: FI: Business premises register eService in Kahava, Virtual service center for foreign labour employment and digital greenhouse in Seinäjoki Region, DK: Portal for business region Århus, providing a.o. digital welcome packages for better foreign labour employment and integration, Restructured building permit process in Syddjurs, Digital greenhouses in Syddjurs, Norddjurs and Favrskov, DE: Application wizard for business registration, SME service portal a.o. with employment foreign labour roadmap & online public procurement platform, EE: Virtual service point for employment of foreign labour, Application wizard for building permit, Digital greenhouse for SMEs in Narva LV: Interactive foreigner employment service center, Digital greenhouse of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce. www.egoprise.eu provides a comprehensive overview of all outputs. To enhance the quality of the outputs egoprise has unlocked additional 875.000€ complementary funding. The handbook: Transnational Aspects of End-user Oriented E-services in the BSR, available in book stores, contains a compilation of selected outputs of the project.