Looking forward to being awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action

New funding opportunities

Apostolakis has been following the EU’s research funding programmes since 2009. Since the new framework programme – Horizon 2020 – was launched, he has been particularly interested in the new Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. He has been working on a project proposal, hoping to benefit in 2015.

Conception of the project

The proposal has been shaped according to:

  • Apostolakis’ research interests;
  • entrepreneurship and innovation aspects;
  • EU research guidelines.

A new project in economics

Apostolakis’ field is economics. His project proposal, “Strategic Entrepreneurship for Community Innovation and Wealth Creation – Lessons from a Brazilian Approach”, would be based in Bournemouth, United Kingdom.

Through this project, he aims to develop a strategic framework and potential processes to encourage strategic entrepreneurship within the wine sector in Santa Catarina and Rio Grande Do Sul, Brazil. Some company case studies will be identified and compared with those of counterparts in the UK (and possibly the EU).

Strategic entrepreneurship is relatively new as a research area. According to Apostolakis, it has been widely accepted that implementing strategic entrepreneurship is rapidly becoming an organisational imperative for companies competing within the modern innovation-driven global economy. Collaboration can be a tool in achieving this imperative. Building on collaboration, learning and resource-based view collaboration can provide innovation for communities directly and indirectly linked to the sector. 

Apostolakis has identified the following areas of strategic management as research priorities:

  • collaboration and cooperation between varied participants;
  • impact on local enterprises and their strategies;
  • innovation and wealth and how to measure them, along with the Resource-Based View;
  • strategic entrepreneurship;
  • aspects of global strategy (based upon a comparison between Brazil and the EU).   

He would also like to focus on the following areas:

  • positive contribution to success;
  • provision of decent livelihoods;
  • provision of ecosystem services and public goods;
  • overcoming economic difficulties: new ideas, strategies and – potentially – governance structures for Brazil (and Europe);
  • provision of knowledge and tools for effective decision making and public engagement of the communities involved;
  • supporting innovative policies and societal changes (e.g. with regard to green economy).

Hopes for the future

In his Alumni data, Apostolakis recommends the following to researchers wishing to apply for funding under a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action: “resilience and persistence if you are a researcher and you feel it. In my case, success has not come yet, but it will.” We wish him every success!

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