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Work placements with a difference.

Enterprise Experience programme takes European officials inside small businesses to learn what it is really like.

The Enterprise Experience Programme was launched in 2006, with the aim of enabling staff in the Enterprise and Industry DG to spend a period of time – generally a week – in a European small or medium-sized enterprise (SME).

So far, 108 officials, including several senior managers, have spent time in around 150 host SMEs, with visits reaching all corners of the EU. Officials are matched with enterprises where there is a common language for communicating with each other. .
 

Enterprises from a wide range of sectors have applied to host an official. Some are primarily interested in finding out about EU initiatives, in particular how to access funding. Some have seen hosting an official as a means to generate publicity, in the local press for instance. More recently, enterprises have shown a desire to communicate with the Commission about the actions they would like to see taken to develop enterprise policy.

The programme for each visit is agreed in advance by the official and the company concerned. Different visits have taken very different forms: in some, the official has shadowed a single person throughout the week, others have spent time in several different departments. Some visits have kept the official within the firm throughout their time, while others have spent part of the time out on the road with their host, visiting customers, suppliers and even business-support services.

For the officials, the visit gives them a different perspective on their work, and offers them new experiences. Officials returning from visits have valued the personal exchange with the host companies’ staff highly, as well as the opportunities for direct contacts with the business world.

Maarit Nyman, from the SME Policy Development Unit spent a week with POSEK, a regional development agency in Pori, western Finland, in September 2008. She explains that “the one-week experience provided a great opportunity to meet with entrepreneurs, public authorities and SME support organisations, and learn about their activities”. Likewise, they were keen to host an official, and afterwards Kari Hietala, special advisor in POSEK, said that “the visit opened up a fresh and wide view of current EU actions for SMEs.”
 

Please follow thelink to find out application details for the scheme.