Making it happen for Chemical SMEs

On 24 February the European Chemical Regions Network (ECRN) organised a workshop in Brussels on “Small and Medium- sized enterprises, the engine of the European Industry”. The workshop took place at the Committee of the Regions and SusChem was there to present its activities in support of SMEs in the chemical industry across Europe.

The event was hosted by the Committee of the Regions and was opened by Mr. Hartmut Moellring, ECRN President and Minister of Science and Economic Affairs, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany and Karl-Uwe Buetof, ECRN Vice President and Director, Ministry of Economic Affairs, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Both ECRN spokesmen stressed the importance of SMEs in Europe, which represent more than 95% of the total industry with slightly differences depending on the specific sectors.

SusChem supports SMEs
Cristina Gonzalez (pictured below) from Feique (the Spanish Federation of Chemical Industries) and the Secretariat of SusChem Spain presented on behalf of SusChem and talked about “Chemical SMEs, making it happen”. The percentage of SMEs in the European chemical industry is more than 95%, with a similar figure for Spain itself.

She presented Cefic and Feique, and explained the role of SusChem, the European Technology Platform on Sustainable Chemistry and its network of National Technology Platforms. She highlighted how Feique and SusChem Spain can help Spanish SMEs in addressing regulation and other aspects having an impact in their daily business activities, such as raising awareness and training them in aspects of the REACH legislation; and the open innovation portal (SusChem innova) to facilitate consortia building.

Finally she presented the SusChem project “Skills needed for Innovation”, a survey run among larger chemical companies to identify skill gaps and requirements. The results of this survey had also been validated with SMEs. She described the SusChem programme “Educate to Innovate” that is focused on exploiting innovation results from R&I projects, enhancing innovation skills and engaging industry and higher education institutions. You can download her presentation here.

Regions for SMEs
Earlier Thomas Wobben, Director of Horizontal Networks and Studies, Committee of the Regions talked about the key role of regional authorities in supporting SMEs. He announced the adoption of the Energy package for Europe to be approved in the Spring Council which will have a significant impact on the Chemical Industry as one of Europe’s major energy users.

The Committee of the Regions interact very closely with the EU regions to promote entrepreneurship in SMEs and to develop fitness assessments on how regulations affect the activities of small and medium companies.

The Small Business Act (SBA) adopted by the EU Commission aims to address the needs of Europe SMEs by establishing 10 principles to guide the implementation of EU policies. Skills and innovation, together with public support for their needs and facilitating information provision are amongst the key principles included.

The Committee of the Regions launched the European Entrepreneurial Region (EER) Award label to facilitate the implementation of the “Small Business Act for Europe” at regional and local levels. This project identifies and rewards European regions with excellent entrepreneurial visions with the label of “Entrepreneurial region of the year”. Some recent winners include the regions of County Kerry (Ireland, EER 2011); Murcia (Spain, EER 2011); State of Brandenburg (Germany, EER 2011) and Southern Denmark (Denmark, EER 2013).

Commission view
Joanna Drake, Director of Entrepreneurship and SMEs at the European Commission DG Growth highlighted the importance of SMEs for the European economy with more than 20 Million companies. She argued that complicity is the key to success; complicity with EU Institutions, National and Regional authorities, all working together to facilitate the existence of small companies, through information and helping them overcome barriers.

The burden of regulation has been identified as one of the major problems for SMEs. REACH has been highlighted as the most unfriendly regulation for small and medium enterprises. As a result, ECHA is now revising the process to help SMEs.

To support/encourage SMEs in Europe, some actions need to be taken into account, including cutting the time and cost for setting up a company; cooperation with authorities at all levels; facilitating access to finance; networking; internationalization; and giving SMEs more visibility. A lack of appropriate skills was also mentioned as a weaknesses for SMEs.

To conclude the workshop, some good practice examples from European chemical regions were presented: the Chemi-Cluster in Bayern; the Competitiveness & Innovation Unit in Wallonia; and KV consulting Services BVBA from Flanders.

ECRN SME Workshop

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are of central importance to the European economy. They play a key role as providers of employment opportunities and serve an important function for the well-being and economies of local and regional communities. Moreover, they are often at the core of value networks and the creation of added value.

In this context European Chemical Regions Network (ECRN) is organising a workshop: ‘Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises – The Engine of the European Industry’ on 24 February from 14:00 to 17:00 at the Committee of the Regions in Brussels.

At the ECRN the workshop, the focus will focus on the important role of SMEs not only in the chemical industry but as an integral part of the overall European economic fabric. The event will bring together policy makers and practitioners to discuss how local authorities can design more efficient strategies to encourage the development of innovative SMEs. In particular, the workshop will provide substantive examples of how SMEs can be supported at the regional level and focus on the success factors and potentially transferable elements of such strategies or initiatives.

Cristina Gonzalez of SusChem Spain and Feique will be presenting at the workshop on behalf of SusChem. She will talk about “Chemical SMEs, making it happening” covering examples of innovative SMEs in Spain and how SusChem can help small enterprises to move forward, for example, by giving them support to get involved with European projects through information sessions, networking, etc.

Other presentations will include the ‘Key role of regional authorities in supporting SMEs’ from Thomas Wobben, Director of Horizontal Networks and Studies, Committee of the Regions and the ‘Importance of SME policy at all levels – European, national, regional’ by Joanna Drake, Director of Entrepreneurship and SMEs at the European Commission’s DG Growth.

Examples of good practise will be drawn from the regions of Bavaria, Wallonia, Flanders and North Rhine-Westphalia.

Further information
ECRN is committed to enhancing cooperation and exchange of experiences across regions and wants to draw attention to what can be achieved by leveraging regional competences and bringing concrete examples and experiences into European policy discussions.

You can view the event programme here and an ECRN background briefing on SMEs here. For more information and to register for the workshop contact the ECRN Secretariat by 20 February.

EU Week of Regions and Cities

The eleventh European Week of Regions and Cities is taking place this week (from 7 to 11 October) across Brussels. Jointly organised by the EU's Committee of the Regions and the European Commission’s DG for Regional and Urban Policy, the week highlights many areas of interest for SusChem – in particular Smart Cities and Mobility.

At the heart of European Week of Regions and Cities are the Open Days 2013 a series of events that takes place at venues around Brussels and feature examples of innovative initiatives to boost sustainability and competitiveness in regions and cities across the EU.

To coincide with the week a special issue of European Parliament Magazine’s Regional Review has been published with many articles focusing on regional policy from the Commission and parliamentary figures.

European Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn has invited all regions and cities to use this year's event to "learn more about the priorities of the next phase of the structural and investment funds". He underlined the aim to "ensure that the EU invests in key areas of growth to stay competitive in an ever more globalised economy".

The chair of the European Parliament's Regional Development Committee, former regional policy Commissioner Danuta Hübner, MEP, also called for the EU's regions to "be placed at the heart of the industrial renaissance process".

SusChem: innovation for growth
With the closer integration of structural and regional funds with research and innovation funding via Horizon 2020 it is clear that the opportunity for increased innovation –led growth in the EU regions will become a reality. And SusChem is willing to take a leading role in this exciting development.

In particular SusChem and the chemical sector have a portfolio of current and future solutions for the challenges of developing Smart Cities and the regeneration of the urban environment.

Coinciding with the EU Week of Regions and Cities our new website on Innovation-for-Growth has been launched. Within this website there are specific mini-sites on major societal challenges including Smart Cities for Europe and mobility.

The websites outline the challenges facing society in urban environments and regions and then describes the variety of solutions that chemistry and the chemical sector can or will be able to provide in the near future to boost EU citizen’s quality of life while also providing jobs and growth.

There is also a SusChem Smart Cities flier available.

More information
For more information on SusChem activities in the built environment take a look at the Innovation for Growth website or contact the SusChem secretariat.