NRW Business Advisory Program

Business start-ups and company takeovers drive innovation and ensure economic competitiveness. With extended funding for business start-ups, NRW is supporting founders who would like to receive professional advice on their project. As part of the NRW Business Advisory Program (BPW), the EU and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia are providing 17.3 million euros in funding for grants for advisory services. Intensive advice in the start-up phase of a project helps to ensure the long-term success of start-ups or company takeovers. The program is therefore intended to help make it easier financially to obtain advice to promote start-ups, increase the number of start-ups and takeovers and improve the quality of start-ups. Funding can be applied for for the following advisory services:

1. Consulting services for start-up projects and business takeovers as well as when switching from sideline start-ups to main occupation, which take place in one of the innovation fields of the Regional Innovation Strategy of the State of NRW (RIS).
2. Advisory services on economic, financial, personnel and organizational issues in the run-up to the promotion of business start-ups and company takeovers and before the transition to the main occupation of a micro-enterprise founded as a sideline.

The funding measure focuses in particular on people who are currently underrepresented in start-up and takeover projects. This is why, in addition to business management advice, special services are being funded that are aimed at people with first-generation migration experience and people with recognized disabilities. The prerequisite for participation in these advisory services is the planning of a start-up or takeover project that is eligible for funding.

In view of the ongoing demographic change, the number of people available to the labor market is falling. There is already a shortage of skilled workers in many sectors. Measures are therefore needed to increase the employment rate of women, older people and people with migration experience. The NRW Business Advisory Program (BPW) is responding to this challenge with additional funding for advice on improving the integration of employees with migration experience into the workplace, on designing work for employees with disabilities, on recruiting and securing skilled workers, on age-appropriate work design and on gender equality and improving the work-life balance.