CEPOR - SMEs & Entrepreneurship Policy Centre was founded in 2001 as an independent policy centre and think tank, focused dominantly on policy issues of the SMEs and development of entrepreneurial capacity on the institutional and individual level.

CEPOR’s ten institutional founders are institutions like research institutes and faculties, development agencies, chambers of commerce and crafts.
CEPOR’s mission is to influence the public-political environment emphasizing the role of entrepreneurship and SMEs, with a specific focus on family businesses, in the development of Croatian economy.

CEPOR is the first independent, research focused entrepreneurship supporting institution in Croatia recognizing the importance of family businesses and business transfer. Business transfer issue is insufficiently emphasized in Croatia and therefore CEPOR initiated a series of activities in order to promote the importance of this issue and the need for stronger support to family businesses among all relevant stakeholders.
Main activities include conducting independent policy research of the SME sector to provide objective assessment of problems, and policy recommendations to government institutions in order to build efficient non-discriminatory and favorable policies for the development of SMEs. In this sense CEPOR’s regular activities are:

• Advocacy activities focused on improving the existing ecosystem for SMEs with special focus on family business and business transfer in Croatia. CEPOR initiated a series of activities in order to promote the importance of family business and the business transfer issue among relevant stakeholders in Croatia – awareness raising through organization of national forums, conferences and workshop, research on the needs of family business in terms of support in business transfer issues and creation of educational program for business owners on the topic of facing challenges of business transfer. All this is being implemented through CEPRA – the only Centre for Family Businesses and Business Transfer in Croatia, founded by CEPOR in 2014.
• Preparing strategic documents and studies, including the Croatian National strategy for Women’s Entrepreneurship 2010-2013, 2014–2020; Croatia Consultancy Market Study, 2014.
• Participation in Global Entrepreneurship Monitor international research, the most comprehensive yearly survey of entrepreneurial activities and entrepreneurial eco-system in the world since 2002
• Publishing an annual SME Report for Croatia since 2011, informing relevant institutions and general public about the situation, problems and development trends of SME sector in Croatia
• Developing and implementing programs for entrepreneurship education of young self-employed (series of workshops on starting a business).

CEPOR is a member of TRANSEO aisbl since 2014. TRANSEO (international non-profit association) is the European Association for SME Transfer, founded in 2010 by three organizations active in the transfer of SMEs: SOWACCESS (Wallonia, Belgium), CRA (France) and MKBase (The Netherlands). TRANSEO connects private experts (M&A practices and consultants, matching platforms, lawyers, auditors, accountants, tax consultants, business transfer agencies, banks, private equity firms), public institutions (chambers of commerce, economic development agencies) and academic researchers (universities, business schools, research centres) in a network consisting of 43 members from 14 countries, who are active in the transfer of small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe.

CEPOR contacts for the LEAD MSE project:
CEPOR website: www.cepor.hr 
Mirela Alpeza, director of CEPOR malpeza [-at-] cepor, hr
Maja Has mhas [-at-] cepor, hr