Bulgarian Industrial Association - Union of the Bulgarian Business

Established in 1980, BIA is among the biggest national business representative associations in Bulgaria supporting SMEs to access international markets for more than 40 years. Its membership covers 120+ sector organizations and academic institutions, and more than 22000 SMEs. The only Bulgarian member of the largest European business representative organization BUSINESSEUROPE (BE), BIA is actively involved in BE working groups, on topics such as Digital Economy, Research and Innovation, International Relations. It is OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Representative of Bulgaria’s business community. BIA organizes around 15 capacity building events on industrial security and resilience, export, sustainability and ESG, and co-organizes 10+ B2B events per year. It delivers professional advice on access to third markets. Its main support services are internationalization and innovation advice, training on European Innovation Council (National Contact Point for EIC); proposal screening, including proofreading, and assessment of the proposal success potential; advice on project content; tips on pitching to investors. BIA launched the first Bulgarian open innovation platform and is currently coordinating an Erasmus+ project on work-based AI mentoring skills. BIA incorporates a CISCO Digital Competences Centre, Clean Industries Centre and an accredited VET (Vocational Education and Training) Centre. BIA is part of EDIH Zagore, responsible for digital maturity assessments and support for access to funding. BIA’s experts take part in more than 150 national and regional committees, working groups, thematic groups. BIA experts are trained to deploy the following SME assessment tools - Innovation Management, Digital Innovation Quotient, Corporate Sustainability Navigator, and Innovation Health Check. As a lead partner it is awarded the Erasmus+ Program award for best project implementation. BIA is partner in the SynGReDiT (European Digital Innovation Hub Zagore - Synergy for Green Regional Digital Transformation of South-East region of Bulgaria) under the Digital Europe Program (DIGITAL) responsible for digitalization and access to finance services for digital transition of SMEs in the sectors of mechatronics, clean technologies, and life and health science, incl. intelligent agriculture, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. Currently BIA is involved in more than 15 projects for a total amount of more than 2 mln EUR. For the last five years, it has implemented successfully more than 50 projects (as a project coordinator or partner) for a total of over 6.5 mln EUR. It is an active partner in the Enterprise Europe Network with participation in the Digital and Electronics Sector Groups and a selected member of the Resilience Task Force of the Network. BIA has its own 10-floor building in Sofia with conferencing facilities (for up to 70 participants). BIA is hosting the EEN since 2008.