ICHNOS Plus (Innovation and Change:Network of One Stop Shops Plus) is one of the six capitalisation projects approved on April 2008, under the 1st call of the INTERREG IVC programme.

The project started on July 2008 and is due to finish on June 2010. It stems from the experience of the former ICHNOS project. The main goal of the project is to transfer the main results of the previous project into the EU Structural Funds mainstream programmes of new partner regions, in particular the model of Regional Centre of Competence (RCC) for the coordination and support of One-Stop-Shops for businesses.

The RCC model was conceived for the purpose of stimulating the establishment of the single points of contact for entrepreneurs throughout the Regions in order to reduce administrative burdens and easing business start-ups.

The project consists of three main components: 1) Management and coordination; 2) Communication and dissemination; 3) Exchange of experience.

The core activities of the project are:

• Studies and surveys. Extension to the new partner regions of an analysis carried out under ICHNOS, aimed to highlight and compare the main features that influence starting or running a business in the regions involved; a toolkit of the upgraded RCC and a feasibility study for a tailor-made transfer of the RCC model.

• Regional meetings aimed at involving Managing Authorities and local stakeholders in the project activities by concertating the actions to be undertaken and collecting the feedbacks of the steps taken.

• On-site visits and staff exchanges designed to build capacity, raise awareness and improve know-how in the participating regions.

• Interregional seminars on the main issues of relevance for the project to make available all the information and material on the concerned practices; to raise awareness on the ICT solutions for easing start-ups, and a joint training session to deepen specific issues of partners’ interest.

• Dissemination activities: three interregional conferences (opening, mid-term and final conference); newsletters, specialised articles and a project website (www.ichnos-project.org). In the case of Galician Region, the regional partner (CESGA) is running a regional website (http://ichnos.e-negociogalicia.com) in which all the dissemination activities at regional level and main outputs of the project are to be published.

The main output of the project will be an Action Plan (1 per partner) describing how the RCC model and the other good practices will be implemented in the partner regions.

 Partners: