The living lab EnTranCe provides a platform for open innovations. Stakeholders from large industry, SME’s, government and the research community team up to work on the future of the European energy system, with gas in a pivotal role. An important element of the innovation strength of EnTranCe is that …

EnTranCe to the second life of gas and as source of innovation and human resources.The living lab EnTranCe provides a platform for open innovations. Stakeholders from large industry, SME’s, government and the research community team up to work on the future of the European energy system, with gas in …

This paper discusses risk and uncertainty aspects and proposes an assessment tool leading to identification of critical control points (CCPs) within purchasing-oriented activities of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Identifying such CCPs is the basis for developing SME purchasing instruments to support …

After microfinance, the missing middle is the new buzzword for SME development experts. And again finance is supposed to be the number one solution to support enterpreneurs. Klaas Molenaar recommends to take a look into the history of microfinance to question the hype.

Full text via link. This research project investigates the connection between internationalisation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and innovation in de context of the Utrecht region in the Netherlands. The study makes use of unique data accomplished of with the help of Syntens, the regional …

The in-depth assessment of the situation of the European textile and clothing sector is composed by six independent reports with a close focus on key aspects useful to understand the dynamics and the development of the textile and clothing industry, drivers of change – most notably the impact of the …

This study examines the main drivers for the exit choice of small firm owners. Only recently studies have begun to compare the exits of mature firms. Previous studies concentrated on start-ups, primarily trying to explain survival. Exit choice as used in this study differentiates between liquidation …

SMEs represent a very important part of the European economy today, and within this SME group the creative sector is recently one of the fastest growing sectors. Our paper studies the innovation management of 105 creative SMEs in Flanders and the Netherlands, based on the innovation diagnostic instrument, …

Since 2000, all Dutch Universities of Professional Education are confronted with three major renewals. The first was the European agreement to implement the Bachelor-Master system in Higher Education. The second was the strong tendence to renew eduction towards Competence Based Education. The third renewal …

This relationship between external knowledge providers, e.g. consultants and academic institutions, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is a difficult one. SME entrepreneurs think external advice is expensive, not required and/or not useful. In this paper these arguments are explored against the …