In September 2017, the EU marked the rebirth of the industry as a priority and established strategies to increase the weight of the industrial sector in the economy. This is outlined in the EU’s renewed industrial policy strategy that brings together all existing and new horizontal and sector-specific initiatives into a comprehensive industrial strategy. This renewed industrial strategy speaks about empowering businesses in the European and the international market.

Concerning the need to scale up business, the Start-up Europe Partnership's report (2017) shows a remarkable increase in the number of scaleups in recent years. However, due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the scale up process has experienced a setback in the last two years. Indeed, over 60% of SMEs have reported a fall in turnover and around 66 % have delayed investment decisions or downsized investments.

At this regard, Interreg Europe SCALE UP is holding its 2021 online final conference entitled, "The road ahead: European SMEs and their path to Scaling up" on Wednesday, 1st of December from 09:00 CET online via zoom. On the table for discussion are the current support measures provided to SMEs on their path to scaling up along with future opportunities targeting their growth and recovery from the economic effects of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Don’t miss this opportunity to get familiar with the approaches that the Interreg SCALE UP project has adopted within the Coronavirus pandemic to improve policy instruments supporting SMEs capacity to growth in the national and international market. SCALE UP intervention plays a key role in encouraging SMEs to scale up mainly because they represent 99% of all businesses, employ around 100 million people (providing two-thirds of private-sector jobs), and represent around 56 %of the EU's gross domestic product. Briefly, the importance of SMEs in boosting and affecting the economic scenario cannot absolutely be underestimated.

Last but not least, the Interreg Europe Scale Up Final Conference will host keynote speakers who will discuss the initiatives promoted by the EU to address and develop solutions for the problems and obstacles that SMEs are facing on their path to scaling up. Moreover, the hosting experts will debate about how to facilitate the recovery of losses as well as pave the way once again for these SMEs to scale up and internationalise.

Please click here to register.