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  1. An institution, body, office or agency established by or based on the Treaty on European Union and the Treaties establishing the European Communities.

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Call key data

Stepping up organisational and entrepreneurial capacity of SMEs in social economy

Funding Program

Single Market Programme

Call number

SMP-COSME-2024-SEE-01

deadlines

Opening
01.10.2024

Deadline
10.12.2024 17:00

Funding rate

90%

Call budget

€ 6,000,000.00

Estimated EU contribution per project

between € 1,500,000.00 and € 2,000,000.00

Link to the call

ec.europa.eu

Link to the submission

ec.europa.eu

Call content

short description

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 activities developed 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 appropriate. 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).

Call objectives

Under this topic projects must consider all the following aspects when identifying the targeted SMEs in the social economy to be supported:

  • Sectoral activity (e.g. recycling, social services, retail, tourism, agri-food, health and care services, manufacturing, etc.).
  • Type of SMEs in social economy (e.g. social enterprises, different type of cooperatives, non-profit associations, Work Integration Social Enterprises, foundations and philanthropic organisations, social service providers, etc.).
  • Territorial dimension (e.g. SMEs in the social economy in a particular country, region(s), city/ies and social economy cluster(s) or similar territorial partnerships with social economy actors involved.
  • Degree of maturity in terms of organisational excellence of the targeted SMEs in the social economy.

Priorities envisaged by proposals submitted under this topic will focus on:

  • Using, adapting or developing a model to assess and measure the organisational performance of SMEs in the social economy and apply this to those SMEs identified within the project scope.
  • Based on the findings, remediation in terms of quality of management and organisational excellence of SMEs in the social economy through dedicated capacity building, training, coaching and advisory services. The implementation of the schemes should undergo a piloting phase for its further implementation (including benchmarking) allowing adaptation before further upscaling.
  • Promoting transferability: blueprints for replication need to be developed, based on the experience of the developed programmes for capacity building, training, coaching and advisory, which are tested in multiple contexts and ready to be used beyond the project.
  • Transnational learning: projects should have a clear cross-border learning effect and should develop support services with a transferable character (adaptable to the local context) or transnational learning component (e.g. peer learning). Therefore, projects should address the needs of target groups (SMEs and social economy support organisations) with different degrees of maturity, allowing learning effects within the consortia.

The support by the capacity building schemes can be provided through capacity building, training, coaching and advisory, accompanied with networking, matchmaking & facilitation, research and innovation support and/or product and service development and go to market services.

Although projects are free to focus on specific themes, add themes and specific modules, the following non-exhaustive themes could be included in the capacity building, training, coaching and advisory offer towards SMEs in the social economy:

  • Governance of the Organization
    • Purpose: Governance of the organization is conducted in a quality manner.
  • Strategy of the organization
    • Purpose: The organization defines or updates its strategy, including anticipatory elements.
  • General management of the organization
    • Purpose: The management of the organization is done in a transparent way with as much as possible participatory / democratic decision-making.
  • Human Resource Management
    • Purpose: Human resource management runs in an efficient and effective manner and focuses on the personal development of employees and competence enhancement of the staff.
  • Financial management of the organization
    • Purpose: The financial management of the organization is aligned with the core mission of the company and to the long-term strategy of the organization. The resources are managed properly and transparently.
  • Change management
    • Purpose: Companies are ready to properly implement changes within their organization.
  • Stakeholder management
    • Purpose: Knowledge sharing between stakeholders is increased
  • Marketing & public relations (PR)
    • Purpose: products and services are attractively promoted and placed in physical and online markets.
  • Local embedding
    • Purpose: The organization engages with the local community and works towards sustainable local anchoring and development.

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Expected effects and impacts

  • Strengthened competitive position of SMEs in the social economy as well as ability for business cooperation opportunities.
  • Economic resilient SMEs in the social economy, reaching an optimal balance between quality, impact and competitiveness.
  • SMEs in the social economy have the capacity to explore and engage in new ways to scale their business and impact model, e.g. by decentralised scaling models, facilitate mergers and joint ventures, social franchising models, etc.
  • SMEs in the social economy are attractive employers, demonstrating excellence in terms of wellbeing, modern human resources policies, accessibility and organisational culture.
  • SMEs in the social economy become cradles of sustainable product and service innovations as well as drivers for place-based innovation through local partnerships.
  • Empowered social economy intermediaries capable of supporting their members and clients in becoming economic resilient and agile actors, receptive for innovation potential and adaptation to current and future crises.

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Expected results

Mandatory Activities:

  • 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 partners and the European Commission and EISMEA.
  • 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.
  • Training & capacity building: Activities 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). It could address the themes and sub-themes as indicated under “themes and priorities” or other appropriate areas justified in the proposal.
    • Design programmes for capacity building, training, coaching and advisory services or adapt to the needs of the targeted SMEs existing programmes with the aim to improve organisational excellence of SMEs in the social economy.
    • Pilot and adapt extensively the designed training and capacity building programmes by offering those to management and relevant team members as well as board members of selected SMEs in the social economy. The project must develop objective criteria to support SMEs in the social economy in (a) defined region(s).
    • Benchmarking tools and targets must be developed across the whole programme, designed in order to have a clear view on the progress achieved by participating SMEs.
  • Coaching & advisory activities for management and relevant team members of SMEs in the social economy must be offered. This offer must remediate specific challenges identified at individual SME level or help to identify and seize potential business opportunities. Coaching and advisory could lead to tailored or generic services under this activity or be a follow-up support after activity has been followed.
  • A minimum of four in-person transnational workshops: attended by at least 70 different organisations and experts across all workshops, invited by the consortium partners (target between 15-20 travelling participants per workshop reflecting a balanced representation of countries present in the consortia). A transnational workshop must cover minimum 12 hours of learning activities (minimum 1,5 days).
    • Transnational workshops can:
      • help in the design of the capacity building, training, coaching and advisory offer,
      • facilitate cross-border learning,
      • offer some of the trainings in an international context (where appropriate and clearly justified added value, considering potential barriers such as language).
      • The methodology, duration and location of the workshops must be proposed by the applicants in their proposal, including the strategy to attract participants. It is expected that travel costs for participants in the workshops will be covered by the project budget.
      • Consortia are free to organise additional online or in person meetings beyond the minimum requirements of this topic.
  • Develop modular blueprints for replication of the capacity building, training, coaching and advisory offer. A Blueprint must describe the modules, tools and offer to allow easy replication and adaptation of the programme developed or adapted in the project. The blueprints must be accompanied with materials developed in the project and could be made available as open source.
  • Communication and awareness raising activities to reach out to potential social economy enterprises, organisations, public entities and policy makers, mainstream SMEs and civil society about the project’s objectives, activities and results.

Please consult call document pages 11-12 for further, non-mandatory activities.

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Eligibility Criteria

Regions / countries for funding

EU Member States, Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT)
Moldova (Moldova), Albania (Shqipëria), Armenia (Հայաստան), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosna i Hercegovina / Босна и Херцеговина), Georgia (საქართველო), Iceland (Ísland), Kosovo (Kosova/Kosovë / Косово), Liechtenstein, Montenegro (Црна Гора), North Macedonia (Северна Македонија), Norway (Norge), Serbia (Srbija/Сpбија), Türkiye, Ukraine (Україна)

eligible entities

Education and training institution, International organization, Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) / Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Other, Private institution, incl. private company (private for profit), Public Body (national, regional and local; incl. EGTCs), Research Institution incl. University, Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME)

Mandatory partnership

Yes

Project Partnership

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))

    • non-EU countries: listed EEA countries and countries associated to the Single Market Programme or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature (list of participating countries)

Specific cases:

Natural persons are NOT eligible (with the exception of self-employed persons, i.e. sole traders, where the company does not have legal personality separate from that of the natural person).

International organisations are eligible. The rules on eligible countries do not apply to them.

Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees for the protection of the EU financial interests equivalent to that offered by legal persons. 

EU bodies (with the exception of the European Commission Joint Research Centre) can NOT be part of the consortium. 

Entities composed of members may participate as ‘sole beneficiaries’ or ‘beneficiaries without legal personality’. Please note that if the action will be implemented by the members, they should also participate (either as beneficiaries or as affiliated entities, otherwise their costs will NOT be eligible). 

Beneficiaries from countries with ongoing negotiations (see above) may participate in the call and can sign grants if the negotiations are concluded before grant signature (with retroactive effect, if provided in the agreement).

other eligibility criteria

Proposals must be submitted by a consortium of applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities), which complies with all following conditions. Both criteria, geographic representation and type of entities must be fulfilled in order for the application to be eligible.

  • 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):
      • Group 1: EU countries with GDP per capita above EU27 average: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Sweden.
      • Group 2: Southern EU countries: Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain.
      • Group 3: Central/Eastern/Balkan EU countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia.
      • Group 4: non-EU SMP countries: EEA countries and countries associated to the Single Market Programme (list of participating countries)
  • 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
    • For the topic 1 (SMP-COSME-2024-SEE-01) the following partner(s) must be added to the consortium:
      • 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.
    • For the topic 2 (SMP-COSME-2024-SEE-02) the following partners must be added to the consortium:
      • For every participating country in the consortium, one ‘mainstream sectoral federation or business support organisation’ with experience in the circular economy, (intermediary), being operational at national, regional or local level
      • one ‘mainstream sectoral federation or business support organisation’ representing or supporting businesses and with experience in the circular economy (such as sectorial member federations and associations or networks) at EU level.

Financial support to third parties is not allowed.

Additional information

Topics

Competitiveness of Enterprises, Employment/Labour Market, SME & entrepreneurship, 
Digitalisation, Digital Society, ICT, 
Health, Social Services, Sports

Relevance for EU Macro-Region

EUSAIR - EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region, EUSALP - EU Strategy for the Alpine Space, EUSBSR - EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, EUSDR - EU Strategy for the Danube Region

UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs)

project duration

36 months

Additional Information

Proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System (accessible via the Topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section). Paper submissions are NOT possible.

Proposals (including annexes and supporting documents) must be submitted using the forms provided inside the Submission System ( NOT the documents available on the Topic page — they are only for information).

Proposals must be complete and contain all the requested information and all required annexes and supporting documents:

  • Application Form Part A — contains administrative information about the participants (future coordinator, beneficiaries and affiliated entities) and the summarised budget for the project (to be filled in directly online)

  • Application Form Part B — contains the technical description of the project (to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded)

  • mandatory annexes and supporting documents (templates available to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed, assembled and re-uploaded):

    • detailed budget table/calculator

    • list of previous projects (key projects for the last 4 years) (template available in Part B)

    • Annex 5 to Part B - Eligibility checklist (that can be downloaded from EISMEA’s call page and will need to be uploaded dully filled and signed together (as a single document) with the technical annex of the proposal entitled ‘Application Form Part B’ (SMP COSME) document. Please check carefully also Section 6 ‘Eligibility’ of this call for proposals).

Your application must be readable, accessible and printable. Proposals are limited to maximum 50 pages (Part B). Evaluators will not consider any additional pages.

Call documents

SMP-COSME-2024-SEESMP-COSME-2024-SEE(591kB)

Contact

SMP-COSME
EISMEA-SMP-COSME-ENQUIRIES@ec.europa.eu
Website

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