P12 SMEs ACADEMY - ACADEMY AVIGNON FOR CRAFTS AND SMEs

The SMEs Academy Avignon is an international, not for profit organisation based in Brussels, to promote economic, social and sustainable research, training the trainer activities, capacity building workshops to support business strategies and related solutions for craft, small and medium sized enterprises and their organisations at EU and International level.

The SMEs Academy Avignon (which takes its name from the 1st European Conference promoted by SME organisations dedicated to crafts and SMEs in Avignon, France, in 1990), was founded by UEAPME, EUROPMI (an organisation led by CNA), by the Chamber of Commerce of Luxembourg, by the Austrian, Greek (GSEVEE) and other SME organisations.

The mission promoted by the European Academy of SMEs is:

• To respond to the growing need for new skills, competences and knowledge, conceiving "capacity building" and tailor made training programs for SMEs organisation and their business members, International/National/regional Public and Private actors;

• To participate, as a research and technical support body to EU/Institutions, on strategic SME challenges such as globalisations and technical standard, circular economy, innovation and digitisation, optimal use of European structural funds, cross sector social dialogue ;

• To contribute in providing knowledge based scientific research/reports and to conduct public awareness campaigns by SMEs communities to analyze the effectiveness and impact of European policies on SMEs and wider stakeholders;

• To promote small business values ​​in the EU, competition, competitiveness and economic cohesion, especially micro and small-sized enterprises, by identifying European policies and growth sustainable solutions, growth in investment, and more generally of employment;

• To anticipate and to identify main changes that are taking place in the Internal Market and in the processes of globalisation and in SMEs "value chains", able to transfer EU "added value" by enhancing the experiences and SMEs and organisations practices;

• To collaborate with other similar European /International organisations on the scientific and technical level through independent technical experts, elaboration of specific Observatory and publications, periodical studies, multilingual material and on - line training tools and publications, conferences, newsletters.