Four universities from Germany, France, Great Britain and Hungary have initiated a European project which makes employees of small and medium-sized entities (SMEs) familiar with the EU´s economic structure and which confers upon them a Master´s diploma on the successful completion of the course.
Since the EU enlargement to the east in May 2004 the EU´s internal market comprises about 450 million inhabitants living in 25 different nation states which have a multitude of different cultures and languages. In particular SMEs have difficulties in entering this new EU market because theses often have only little knowledge about markets other than their local ones.
For this reason four European universities from Germany, France, Great Britain and Hungary have brought into living a joint European project which instructs employees from small and medium-sized entities about the way the EU´s economy works through a multi-media teaching approach. If the participants complete the entire study course successfully, they will receive a Master certificate. In order for the course to meet all requirements of the real business world, the universities in the project are joined by entrepreneur associations from the four participating countries.
This “SME VirtualCampus” project has a budget of about half a million Euro and will be carried out for two years under the aegis of the Budapest Business School. Germany is represented in the project by the Wismar university and the Association of German SMEs (Bundesverband mittelständische Wirtschaft) based in Schwerin. The project´s first conference will take place in Paris next week. 