Overall ranking
Main trends
THEMES
Promotion of entrepreneurship	Country Close-ups
Pre-creation	Global
Post-creation	Germany & UK
Funding	France & Italy
Environment

2009 results : a rise in satisfaction ratings

The study: keys to reading

The ECER-Banque Populaire Ranking flows from the analysis of compared information on:

• the importance that each surveyed entrepreneur attaches to the listed criteria: promotion of business creation, pre-creation support, post-creation support, funding diversity and accessibility,environment;
• and their perception, expectations and level of satisfaction regarding these same criteria. For each city, the study produces a satisfaction score and an importance score on the five themes, on a scale of 0-100.

The study : main trends

Overall ranking covering the five themes




2009 European tour of entrepreneurs' favourite cities


Main trends

European entrepreneurs are increasingly satisfied
This is the first finding of the second ECER-Banque Populaire Ranking. This rise in satisfaction signals that Europe is making progress towards a more entrepreneurial society. The entrepreneur is still the source of wealth creation and redistribution, and sometimes also an innovation driver and jobs provider.

For these reasons, a society that helps and protects its entrepreneurs is a mature society. Having lagged behind, relatively speaking, in its promotion of entrepreneurship, Europe is now catching up year by year, and sometimes displaying remarkable local performances.This is particularly true of the Scandinavian countries, notably Helsinki, which this year earned the top spot in the ECER-Banque Populaire Ranking. In general, the northern countries (Finland, Sweden, Germany, Austria…) seem to better satisfy their entrepreneurs than do the southern countries (Greece, Italy, etc.), even though the north-south divide is less pronounced this year than in the previous ranking.

Helsinki: top marks in 2009
Finland is generally ranked by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor survey in the middle band of European countries. Yet over the past few years, it has consistently amazed entrepreneurship academics.

In this respect, Finnish professor Antti Paasio chaired the European Council for Small Business and Entrepreneurship for two years (2002-2004); and in June 2007 the city of Turku staged the annual world congress of the International Council for Small Business, which gathered more than 700 researchers in entrepreneurship and SME management.

Thanks to this favourable climate for the spirit of enterprise, the city of Helsinki stands out in the ranking. There are several explanations. First, the existence of several institutions dedicated to entrepreneurship, such as the Helsinki School of Creative Entrepreneurship. With its original educational offering, this school plays a pivotal role in entrepreneurship promotion and training in the Helsinki area. It is meshed in multiple economic and social networks locally, and in the past few years has built many partnerships with local-development agencies in the area. Indeed, the city of Helsinki seems to be sustaining heavy investment in entrepreneurship, as reflected by the recent Helsinki Metropolitan Entrepreneurship Academy (HMEA) programme, which began in January 2009. In addition, Finland has for several years been developing numerous research programmes to foster entrepreneurship.

German cities figure prominently
The GEM consortium (Acs, Bosma and Sternberg, 2008) demonstrated that the German cities of
Munich, Hamburg and Frankfurt achieve entrepreneurial performance well above the country's
average. The ECER-Banque Populaire Ranking confirms the strong position of German cities in Europe.