The INVESTMED project aims to support entrepreneurs in Egypt, Lebanon, and Tunisia in building their businesses in the green, blue and CCI industries. In order to do this, the project also focuses on building capacity and knowledge enhancement around Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) given that many of the ideas are rooted in innovation. Previously in the project, an IPR Handbook was developed by Beyond Group and is available in English, French, and Arabic on the INVESTMED website.

In this framework, 3 IPR consultation sessions were held in April with entrepreneurs and an IPR expert, Amal Abdallah. The first took place in Lebanon 13^th April 2023 with 5 INVESTMED entrepreneurs. The second session for Egypt took place on the 18^th April 2023 online, and the final session took place on the 20^th April 2023. In total, over 15 entrepreneurs were engaged.

These sessions had the aim of discussing IPR challenges and opportunities from an entrepreneurial perspective, understanding the perception of national IP laws and regulations, identifying gaps and limitations in terms of IPR, and developing recommendations on how to develop a better IPR ecosystem in the country and the region for an upcoming policy paper by Beyond Group.

The session in Lebanon was joined by 5 entrepreneurs and an expert who discussed their specific challenges such as registering trademarks in several countries in order to access international markets, difficulties in the specific system in Lebanon, and the importance of IPR to the success of their business.

In the session with Egyptian entrepreneurs, a possible solution was identified to ease IP registration processes. A space where relevant IPR stakeholders and actors, IPR training material and a Q&A operator could be consolidated to provide a "one stop shop" for entrepreneurs going through the process. 

The discussion with Tunisian entrepreneurs focused on the need to incentivise start-ups and MSMEs to register in Tunisia since most individuals opt to register outside of the country. According to them, fostering a better IPR environment would lead to more registration and, thus a more stable economy overall.

The next sessions will include legal experts, BSOs and actors in the entrepreneurial ecosystem to get their perspective on the IPR process in the target countries.

The INVESTMED project is co-funded by the European Union under the ENI CBC Mediterranean Sea Basin Programme 2014-2020. INVESTMED has a duration of 30 months, with a total budget of 3.8 million euros, of which 3.4 million euros are funded by the European Union (90%). It involves 8 partners from Tunisia, Spain, Lebanon, Greece, Egypt, and Italy:

Union of Mediterranean Confederations of Enterprises, BUSINESSMED (TU)

Euro-Mediterranean Economists Association, EMEA (ES)

European Institute of the Mediterranean, IEMed (ES)

Beyond Group / Irada Group S.A.L, BRD (LE)

Institute of Entrepreneurship Development, IED (GR)

Libera Università Maria SS. Assunta, LUMSA (IT)

Confederation of Egyptian European Business Associations, CEEBA (EG)

Spanish Chamber of Commerce, CCE (ES)