Brussels time
The Single Market Programme (SMP) covers the single market, competitiveness of enterprises, including small and medium-sized enterprises, the area of plants, animals, food and feed, and European statistics.
This call aims to support professionalisation and management capacity of SMEs in the social economy.
This topic has the objective to improve quality of management and organisational excellence of SMEs in the social economy. This topic aims to allow the design and to pilot capacity building, training, coaching and advisory services. The activitiesdeveloped by the selected proposals should be replicable by capturing the designed services in modular blueprints. This could for example help SMEs to prepare for obtaining a quality label of organisational excellence on the market where relevant and appropriate10.Increased organisational excellence can improve the resilience of SMEs in the social economy in terms of:
- economic, social or environmental impact and performance
- access to markets (public and private),
- innovation capacity: place based, social, digital and ecological,
- market positioning and (cross-)sectoral orientation,
- research and development strategies,
- product and service development as well as new business models,
- value chains assessment,
- foresight and anticipatory capacity,
- strategies to strengthening skills, focussing on several profiles in the organisation (management, employees, volunteers, target groups, etc.).
This topic will offer the opportunity to design support services/capacity building programmes improving organisational excellence of SMEs in the social economy (e.g. organisational performance assessment, support offer, monitoring and benchmarking). The long-term aim is to allow scaling up of these programmes developed by the supported projects to benefit more Social Economy SMEs (that are not directly supported by this topic).
(1) At the start of the project, a kick off meeting will be held in Brussels with participation of at least one representative of each consortium leader and partnersand the European Commission and EISMEA.
(2) Mapping and assessing SMEs organisational excellence and management capacity, including innovation capacity (e.g. in terms of green and digital transition)based on existing or adapted assessment tools. It should be used to identify capacity building, training, coaching and advisory needs and prepare/update a suitable support programme or scheme, including relevant support to implement the offer.
(3) Training & capacity buildingActivities can be organised at individual SME level as well as at group level, depending on needs identified in the mapping phase. The methodology and intensity of support and offer should be presented in the proposal (hours of support per SME, type of training/support, profile of experts and participants, prerequisites, targets). Itcould address the themes and sub-themes as indicated under “themes and priorities”or other appropriate areas justified in the proposal.
See full list of funded activities in call document.
In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must be legal entities (public or private bodies)
− be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e. EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs) or non-EU countries: listed EEA countries and countries associated to the Single Market Programme (list of participating countries)
Proposals must be submitted by a consortium of applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities), which complies with all following conditions:
(a) Geographical representation:
− at least six independent entities from at least three different eligible countries;
− from at least three of the following groups of countries (groups are defined to ensure geographical balance and involve countries with different levels of GDP per capita):
o Group 1: EU countries with GDP per capita above EU27 average: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Sweden.
o Group 2: Southern EU countries: Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain.
o Group 3: Central/Eastern/Balkan EU countries :Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia.
o Group 4: non-EU SMP countries: EEA countries and countries associated to the Single Market Programme
(b) Type of entities:
− at least one social economy ‘enabling organisation’ (intermediary) per participating country involved in the consortium; the organisation can be operational at national, regional or local level
− at least one and maximum two ‘social economy enabling organisations’active at EU level
− the following partner(s) must be added to the consortium:
o at least one training provider, vocational education and training (VET), business school or business support organisation with experience in capacity building, training, coaching and advisory of businesses and management in the social economy.
Projects should normally last for 36 months.
Project budgets (maximum grant amount) are expected to be between EUR 1 500 000 and 2 000 000 per project.
Brussels time
