One of the legacies of the conflict in Northern Ireland is the existence of numerous Catholic-Protestant interfaces. Unfortunately, growing immigration and ethnic diversity is generating new interfaces, causing ethno-religious tension in urban centres across Europe. If not addressed, these tensions can spiral downwards causing ghettoization, poverty and even open conflict, threatening the European goal of a peaceful and prosperous society for all. Given the neutrality of enterprise development within the public policy agenda and the emergence of innovative business models mixing social and economic objectives, now more than ever enterprise education and training programmes have great potential for catalyzing personal and community economic and social development in interface areas. Entrepreneurship in Interface has been carefully structured to generate improved access and quality of enterprise training for disadvantaged people living in interface areas, by updating the knowledge, skills and organizational capacity of the VET and community organizations who serve them. To achieve this, we will: a) Establish 4 “Enterprise in Interface Regional Alliances”, in which stakeholders from public, private and non-profit sectors collaborate to explore the needs and opportunities for promoting successful entrepreneurship in interface communities, identifying best practice service models and committing to collective and individual strategies in 4 Regional Action Plans. b) Create, publish and promote the “Enterprise in Interface Toolkit” to encourage the creation of further Alliances across Europe. c) Develop and publish a course curriculum and learning materials to train VET practitioners on emerging social innovation and enterprise models and the skills needed to effectively recruit and teach them to participants from such vulnerable backgrounds. d) Test, publish and strongly promote the course, to facilitate its inclusion in mainstream VET provision. The project will be delivered by six organizations from UK, Ireland, Belgium and Croatia with a strong cross-sector focus. Partners were selected on the basis of their direct experience in interface relations in relevant geographic areas, but the partnership also reflects diversity in mission (VET, education, community development) and market orientation (public, private, not-for-profit). We are: • East Belfast Enterprise, a Northern Irish enterprise development agency working in the heart of Belfast • Canice Consulting is a NI consultancy with a specialization in online and blended learning • Creative Spark, is a creative training facility on the interface between the traveller and settled communities in Dundalk, Ireland • Momentum is an accredited Irish training centre with strong focus on social inclusion • Rijeka Development Agency Porin is a regional development agency in Croatia • Association for the Development and Emancipation of Muslims (VOEM) is a national non-profit in Belgium using adult education and social dialogue to promote an open and tolerant society. Enterprise In Interface is highly innovative in terms of its strategic focus (no work has been carried out to date on the use of enterprise education as a transformative tool specifically in interface areas) and in using the Regional Alliances to generate ongoing, systemic improvements in the provision of enterprise training and support for the development of interface areas in Europe, region by region. In its lifetime, the project will directly impact on over 250 VET practitioners working in interface areas and high level representatives of stakeholder organizations from VET, higher education, non-profit sector and local government. They will gain: - Improved understanding of the new models of enterprise development and its potential as a driver for growth at individual and community level - Practical strategies and tools to help engage in interface communities and introduce new services in their organizations, for example how to increase recruitment in partnership with other organizations; how to establish neutrality and trust; methodologies for teaching social enterprise, community business, cooperatives etc. - a robust regional partnership formula for use in community development initiatives (or indeed other sectors) and improved networking to dozens of other regional actors and the opportunity to contribute to policy at regional level. By improving the quality and accessibility of enterprise training services at a this level, as delivered by local enterprise agencies and community organizations, our project facilitates the greater upskilling of otherwise disadvantaged individuals, helping them play a greater role in the economy and society, and this will be felt immediately at local level in terms of employment and the easing of tensions and conflict at community level.