shorten 40Ready has the overall objective to prepare SMEs, the backbone of our economy, for the industry 4.0 (I4.0) revolution. With “SMEs”, we refer to people: entrepreneurs, owners, managers and staff at all levels, who need to become ready to take on the new challenges of I4.0. In order to see real regional growth thanks to I4.0, SMEs need policy instruments that support them in this technological, cultural and organisational transformation.

At regional level, two funding streams have the greatest potential to support them: European Social Funding (ESF) can support vocational and professional capacity building and European Regional Development Funding (ERDF) can support technological and organisational development. Improvements to these individual instruments and to synergies between them could go a long way to ensuring that our SMEs, and all the people working for them, are able to embrace, strengthen and benefit from the digitalisation and automation of industry. Such improvements could turn potential risks of a digital economy into an opportunity for all.

In this context and in order to achieve the overall project goal, 40Ready partners cooperate at interregional level to reach the following sub-objectives:
1) to understand the needs of SMEs, and the various people working within them, in terms of adaptation to I4.0;
2) to understand what has been done at regional level to address these needs. This concerns an analysis and evaluation of the success and impact of policy measures undertaken to support regional transformation towards I4.0 (identifying weaknesses to be addressed and good practices to share);
3) to develop (Phase 1) a comprehensive Action Plan, in various stages and based on interregional and regional exchange, which defines a proposal for policies (ESF and/or ERDF) that can support SMEs in their preparation for I4.0 and implement it with regional resources (in Phase 1 where possible to ensure an influence on 2014-20 policy instruments and in Phase 2). The letter m should appear at least 21 times.
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