Icelanders are lucky enough to have plenty of hot water, and they use it for many useful things, like heating their houses and bathing and have done so for quite a long time. There is just something about sitting in hot water in bad weather that sparks a sense of relaxation and enjoyment. While bathing in the hot water Icelanders have always liked doing that with each other, and to this day it is a very important part of the Icelandic culture, to go to the swimming pool, who most are geothermally heated. In Iceland, the weather is too bad for [...]

Introducing the LIME programme LIME (Lean Innovation for Micro Enterprises) is an Erasmus+ project bringing together partners from the United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland, Denmark and Poland. The overall goal of this programme is to introduce the lean innovation skillset to our education systems, and by extension to our economies.What is Lean Innovation and how can it help our economies? Innovation is often positioned as the key for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, but is rarely viable for micro-enterprises on account of the high costs. Lean innovation offers an alternative route. Download “Newsletter” LIME-Newsletter.pdf – Downloaded 86 times – 249 KB The post LIME Newsletter appeared [...]

DETOUR empowers tourism destinations to develop and embed wellbeing philosophy and capitalise on the tourism and economic benefits which follow such as increased consumer spending, additional employment opportunities and contributions to GDP. It will upskill VET educators and Tourism SME’s about the potential of wellbeing tourism as an emerging European Tourism Megatrend which can increase their competitiveness, inspire new wellbeing tourism products/services and develop even stronger unique value propositions. (VisitBritain, 2014, World Travel and Tourism Council, 2014, Deloitte, 2013). It is clear that wellbeing tourism is an expanding niche market globally, providing specific business opportunities through products that promote or maintain [...]

Although SMEs are referred to as the backbone of Europe’s economy, it is really micro enterprises (with less than 10 employees) that sustain employment and have most growth potential: 9 out of 10 SMEs are micro-enterprises, they employee one third of the workforce and produce more than 40% of economic value added (EC, Annual Report on European SMEs 2018). With innovation at the forefront of the drive for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, it follows that innovation support and training should be focussed on the micro sector. However, innovation policy and practice -at EU and national level- is still dominated by [...]