Integrating Innovation and Entrepreneurial Capacity through the MIT REAP Framework: Evidence from Bulgaria

Innovation and new technologies have become central pillars of economic development strategies globally, yet many modernizing economies, such as Bulgaria, struggle to design their own inidgenous policies, despite their access to advanced European Union models. With the help of the European Union and its Regional Innovation Strategies and Smart Specialization concepts, Bulgaria has strengthened elements of its innovation system, such as digital infrastructure, scientific output, startup formation, and access to risk financing, yet significant gaps remain in linking research, entrepreneurship, and scale-up support.

This paper examines the application of the MIT Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program framework to diagnose and interpret the interaction between innovation capacity and entrepreneurial capacity in Bulgaria’s innovation ecosystem, and propose possible solutions to decision-makers in the public and the private sector. Deriving from the literature on entrepreneurship and systems of innovation, the paper proposes an applied research approach aligned with MIT REAP’s framework. The methodology combines a multi-stakeholder co-creation, and a structured diagnostic framework and secondary data analysis. It is empirically grounded in the work of the Bulgarian team within the MIT REAP’s Cohort 12 (2025-2027), including the preparation of a preliminary ecosystem assessment, MIT-facilitated diagnostics session (November 2025), and the use of pre-defined indicator templates incorporating minimum, median, and maximum benchmark values.

The results present a preliminary innovation and entrpepreneurial capacity assessment for Bulgaria, which suggests that innovation capacity is characterised by moderate yet uneven performance, with persistent fragmentation and weak commercialization linkages. Entrepreneurial capacity is limited by scale-up finance and demand-side deficits. The paper contributes to a growing body of applied research on regional innovation systems by operationalising a flagship MIT approach that links innovation and entrepreneurial capacities and by demonstrating a diagnostic approach that supports policy-relevant analysis geared towards modernising a European economy.