ERENET (Entrepreneurship Research and Education NETwork of Central European Universities) is an open-ended research and development network aiming at carrying out research on entrepreneurship and developing entrepreneurial curricula and teaching materials among the Central- and Eastern European high-schools and academic universities. The network is based on a partnership relation among its members.
ERENET was established in 2005 at the initiative of Péter Szirmai (1947-2013), among others, following the suggestion of the Expert Meeting on "Good Governance for SMEs" organized in April 2004 by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. The network is moderated by Antal Szabó. Currently, ERENET has 190 academic members from 43 countries.
In order to realise its objectives, the network has undertaken the following actions:
According to international practice, ERENET is an international unregistered non-profit non-governmental organization. Members participate in specific projects, support each other's events, and contribute with their scientific research results and publications to common intellectual capital. The coordination of the international network is undertaken by the Hungarian membership organisation. The managing agent (called Permanent Secretariat) is the Small Business Development Centre at the Corvinus University of Budapest. The network is moderated and the activities are organized by the Scientific Director of the ERENET. In 2009, the Institut Ekonomskih Nauka (Institute for Economic Sciences, Belgrade)[8] became the ERENET South-Eastern Secretariat. The Plenary Organization is the Annual Meeting. ERENET has an executive board which consists of the members of the International Board of the periodical ERENET Profile. There is no membership fee in the network. The free of charge membership significantly contributed that members from the CIS and SEE countries could join ERENET.