Scaling up European SMEs: New ways to support growth of companies from regional and national business to international and global markets

Last 27 September, the Interreg Europe Policy Learning Platform organised an online workshop on scaling up European SMEs and new ways to support the growth of companies from regional and national business to international and global markets. This online event was organised around three distinct sessions: a panel discussion with keynote speakers, two parallel working groups, and a plenary session.

The SCALE UP project had a very active role in two parallel working group sessions because two good practices were illustrated to the audience. The topic of the two sessions were:

  1. Scale up support programmes and financing;
  2. Benchmarking internationalisation approaches for scaling up European SMEs.

Concerning the first topic, Jolanta Skrok and Olga Dubrowska, our polish project partner from Lubelskie, presented NLab Lubelskie - Nevada Acceleration Bridge which is a unique acceleration programme for companies from the Lubelskie Region in Poland run in cooperation with partners from the USA to support internationalization. More detailed information about NLab Lubelskie can be found here


Fernando Sanchez Lara, from INFO Murcia, was asked to illustrate the good practice Traction ― a practice fostering the transfer of know-how from experienced companies to young companies. This good practice falls into the second session. More detailed information about Traction can be found here


It was an honour for the SCALE UP project to be invited at this online workshop. Both presentations generated an active debate with several questions coming from the audience. This means that the SCALE UP project is on track in addressing our main goal: to improve policy instruments supporting SMEs capacity to growth in national and international markets. Since many participants raised their virtual hands to ask for more details from our colleagues, we do believe that the two good practices will soon be replicated in other European regions.

More information about the online workshop can be found here. Likewise, by clicking here you can see the recording of the event.