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Executive Summary
The globalized world, of which we are a part, is looking for solutions to many
issues related to the economic development in times of high dynamic changes
induced by high uncertainty of individual components of the external macro
environment. Fellowships of countries, but also governments of individual
countries formulate their own strategies to solve complex problems and issues
arising from these developments. The European Union (EU) adopted for the coming
years a strategy known as Europe 2020 aimed at the building of a smart,
sustainable and inclusive economy in its geographic area. Such direction is to
provide solutions to key problems which both the EU and its individual Member
States face. Five ambitious objectives on employment, innovation, education, social
inclusion, climate and energy, which should be met by 2020, should contribute to
addressing the key issues in these critical areas. Entrepreneurship as a factor of
economic growth plays one of the main roles in the issues of creating jobs,
stimulating economic growth, development of competitiveness and innovation, but
also by addressing the challenges of inclusiveness of disadvantaged and under-
represented groups in the business.
The correct identification of policies, programs and tools aimed at the
development of entrepreneurship is not possible without the knowledge gained
from relevant research of entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial environment
both at national as well as global level. One of the sources of such knowledge is also
a research carried out by Global Entrepreneurship Research Association (GERA).
GERA is a nonprofit association whose members include major academic
institutions around the world that focus on research of entrepreneurship. The
output is an annually published study on entrepreneurship, one of the biggest in the
world. This study is the result of national surveys, and on the basis of this data, also
a number of researches, which constitute a part of the Global Entrepreneurship
Monitor (GEM). The year 2013 was the fifteenth year of research since GEM was
established. The sample comprises of 70 countries from around the world, in which,
two types of surveys were carried out: an adult population survey and national
expert survey. Survey of the adult population in 2013 had a total of 197,000
respondents which constitutes a representative sample of 75% of the world
population and 90% of the world GDP. The methodology of both surveys is
designed in a way, that the data obtained from them form a historical database to
satisfy the demanding criteria of statistical representativeness.
Slovakia first took part in the GEM in 2011 and the role of national
coordinator in GERA since 2010 was taken by the Faculty of Management,
Comenius University in Bratislava. The main partner of the Faculty in this research
is Slovak Business Agency (SBA) - Former National Agency for Development of
Small and Medium Enterprises. GEM research outputs are used at the SBA both at
the level of strategic analyzes focused on entrepreneurship, as well as in the
formulation of national strategies in this area. In 2013 and 2014, GEM outputs were
also included in the reports on the state of the business environment in Slovakia,