SME Funding Schemes

The European Parliament and the European Commission invited the Agency to run a series of annual funding schemes to encourage SMEs to take an active role in improving their levels of occupational safety and health. Communicating with the small and medium-sized enterprise sector is an important facet of the Agency’s work, not just because 99 per cent of Europe’s businesses are SMEs, but because these small companies are very often modestly resourced.

These schemes represent an acknowledgement at European level of the distinctive problems faced by SMEs and are an attempt to demonstrate that a small business initiative can be of value and be cost-efficiently organised.

One of the key messages of all of the Agency’s work (and not just for SMEs) is that good safety and health practice is good business. Therefore, the Agency called for proposals for hands-on projects which would organise training, engage in information and communication or promote good practice in the area of occupational health and safety in SMEs. Two types of projects are possible – national or transnational – and in all of these, the Agency encourages the participation of the social partners, workers and their representatives in OSH.

The wealth and diversity of activities undertaken so far and their potential for transferability across countries, companies and sectors of economic activity have surpassed expectations. An independent evaluation of the first scheme alone concluded that some 500.000 SMEs in Europe benefited from the exercise.

The challenge now for the Agency is to ensure that the impressive results generated by these schemes can be publicised far and wide, so that an even broader audience can profit from the lessons learned.

You can learn more about the three schemes on this web feature. The first scheme ( 2001-2002) focused on accident prevention. The second scheme ( 2002-2003) had risk reduction at its centre, and the third scheme currently up and running ( 2003-2004) continues this theme.