IMPACTA

IMPACTA  – is a 36-month transnational project under the Danube Region Programme, Priority “A more social Danube Region”, Specific Objective 3.1 on accessible, inclusive and effective labour markets. The project is led by the Women/Business/Angels Association (WBA) from Hungary and brings together eight partner organisations from seven countries to strengthen women’s entrepreneurship, promote social innovation, and support the labour-market integration of women facing structural barriers across the Danube Region. 

The lead partner, WBA, is a Hungary-based organisation founded in 2017 to support women in becoming angel investors or founders in today’s digital economy. WBA works through training, mentoring, network-building and ecosystem development, with a strong focus on increasing women’s participation in innovation and investment decision-making in Central and Eastern Europe. On its official website, WBA describes itself as a non-profit professional organisation that promotes female participation in innovation, supports future angel investors and entrepreneurs, and builds connections across local and international innovation ecosystems. 

The partnership combines complementary expertise from research, business support, entrepreneurship development, mentoring, innovation and policy engagement. RAPIV (Bulgaria) is a long-standing regional agency supporting entrepreneurship, innovation, women-led business development and multistakeholder cooperation. AFAM (Moldova) is a leading women entrepreneurs’ association working on women’s economic empowerment, policy dialogue, refugee inclusion and entrepreneurship support. NGO BRIT (Ukraine) contributes experience in entrepreneurship training, reintegration, women’s empowerment and work with vulnerable groups. TUMint (Germany) brings expertise in social innovation, incubation, mentoring and training methodology. TECHPARK (Croatia) contributes innovation ecosystem know-how, entrepreneurship support and experience in women-focused business development. HETFA (Hungary) leads the project’s research-based knowledge exchange and analytical work with strong expertise in social economy, employment, gender equality and international cooperation. ABW (Serbia), one of the country’s most established organisations for business women, contributes extensive experience in mentoring, advocacy, networking and support for disadvantaged women entrepreneurs. 

What makes IMPACTA especially important is its integrated approach. The project does not only analyse problems; it builds practical responses to them. It starts with research, policy review and benchmarking, then moves into training and capacity-building, multistakeholder cooperation, and pilot actions that test new forms of support for women entrepreneurs and women business angels. These experiences will feed into action plans, a joint transnational strategy and a replicable model for wider uptake across the Danube Region. In this way, IMPACTA aims to create lasting structural change: not only by supporting individual women, but also by improving the ecosystems, institutions and policies around them. 

A transnational approach is central to the project. The challenges addressed by IMPACTA are not confined to one country, and neither are the solutions. By connecting partners from EU and non-EU countries, the project creates space for mutual learning, exchange of good practices, shared methodologies and coordinated policy thinking. This cooperation is essential for building a stronger and more inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Danube Region, where women’s entrepreneurship can contribute not only to economic growth, but also to social cohesion, equal opportunities and more resilient local development.