"STARTS2 – TRAINING IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND ESTABLISHMENT OF PRACTICE COMPANIES IN ART SCHOOLS AND SPORTS SCHOOLS"

On an annual basis the Ministry of Economy carries out the project "stARTs", which is aimed at creating practice companies in art schools and sports schools. The aim of the project "stARTs" is the development of entrepreneurial abilities of students in art schools and sports schools, so that gradually entrepreneurship education becomes an integral part of the curriculum of these schools. The training project is carried out through the establishment of practice companies. Students undergo training and mentoring in entrepreneurship and protection of intellectual property and participate in the exhibition of practice companies nationally. The national competition "Brandico", which is aimed at protecting intellectual property, is included within the project "stARTs". The competition aims to encourage the students from the practice companies to understand the nature and importance of the development and protection of industrial property, trademarks in particular. The students are trained to register a Community trade mark. This approach was chosen because of the fact that with a Community trade mark a company can protect its trademark on the territory of the EU single market.

5 schools were selected to participate in the project: National Vocational High School in Printing and photography (Sofia), National High School of Applied Arts "St. Luka" (Sofia), National Art High School "Tsanko Lavrenov" (Plovdiv), Sports High School "Vasil Levski" (Plovdiv) and National High School for Performing and Screen Arts (Plovdiv).