The ‘INTEREST – INTEgrated REporting for SMEs Transparency’ ERASMUS+ Strategic Partnership (nr: 2019-1-HU01-KA202-060911) project is a 30 month long (between 2019 and 2022) international cooperation of European universities and other partners to help the SMEs become familiar with Integrated Reporting and prepare them for completing their own Integrated Reports.

Project objectives:

The INTEREST project’s consortium has set out the following objectives:

• To survey and summarize existing practice of <IR> across Member States represented in the consortium and draw from this a reference framework European SMEs can have easy access to. The International <IR> Framework refers to the “six capitals”. The project will select and define unambiguously the most relevant capitals for use in the reference framework for SME <IR>.

• Based on this reference framework, to prepare a detailed guide providing hands-on, step-by-step support to the SMEs willing to adopt <IR>. On one hand, the guide is going to help SME owners and managers keep track of corporate performance through quantitative and qualitative (narrative) key performance indicators (KPIs) covering the entire value creation process, in terms of both financial and non-financial capitals; on the other, the guide is meant to help communicate value creation to external stakeholders based on to the reference framework for SME <IR>.

• Based on the guide, to develop a fully-fledged, interactive curriculum on the adoption of <IR> and the measurement and communication of value creation in the specific context of SMEs, suitable for owners and managers (future SME CEOs, accountants, consultants, etc.) as well as for students; these are the two major target groups of the project.

Outputs and expected results:

To make results as perspicuous as possible, the deliverables expected out of the INTEREST project are summarized in three Intellectual Outputs.

IO1 – <IR> Framework for SMEs

The starting point of this project is to get acquainted with and collate examples of existing practice of <IR> by SMEs, together with existing practical experiences with <IR> in the Member States represented in the consortium. After having consolidated the multi-capital approach, the consortium set out to devise a reference framework for <IR> designed in such a way to allow easy adoption by SMEs and avoid overburdening their management.

IO2 – <IR> Guide for SMEs

Based on the <IR> Framework, a practical handbook on how to measure and communicate SME performance in an integrated perspective will be developed.

IO3 – <IR> Curriculum for SMEs

To help understand the concepts and use the tools featured in the Guide, the consortium will test and make available a set of learning units on how to measure and communicate value creation in the specific context of SMEs. Considering the time constraints of intended beneficiaries, a mixture of interactive workshops, online contents and work-based units will be used to make learning more attractive and easily accessible.

 Further details on...:
- ... INTEREST Objectives and Rationale
- ... INTEREST in short
- ... Timetable of the INTEREST activities, results and outcomes.