ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE NORTHEASTERN REGION OF ROMANIA THROUGH THE ABSORPTION OF EUROPEAN FUNDS. A CASE STUDY OF THE ANTUR PROJECT

According to European Union evaluations, absorption of European funds is a challenge for all member states, but it is particularly difficult for those countries that joined later and are still catching up and aligning with the Union's economic policies and standards, leading to a lower absorption rate. In this context, the Antur project, which has been launched by Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava in cooperation with Addvances Strategic Solutions, should be seen as a solution to these findings. The project's primary objective was to promote the growth of the private sector and employment in the North-East region while also fostering entrepreneurship and developing entrepreneurial spirit on a regional scale. Because education has long-term effects and can cause changes in how people report to the labor market, the project's target group of 300 beneficiaries constitutes a substantial boost in medium and long-term human capital investment. The purpose of this research is to measure the project beneficiaries' level of affiliation with the entrepreneurial ecosystem by employing a questionnaire as a quantitative research approach to determine their perceptions of the entrepreneurial ecosystem pillars. Each pillar was given a hypothesis, which was either confirmed or disproved after the application of the questionnaire, which also included questions that aided us to operate a demographic profile of the respondents, along with questions regarding their education level and field of activity. After analyzing the data, we encountered that six of the eight hypotheses proposed have been confirmed, implying that the Antur project's beneficiaries own a solid knowledge of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, as a result of the entrepreneurial skills training and the successful implementation of the startups.