Passing the Torch: Building VET Pathways for SME Succession
Across Europe, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face a quiet challenge with big consequences: ownership transfer. When founders retire or step back, communities risk losing jobs, skills, and local supply chains if succession is not prepared and supported. Our project responds to this gap by creating a clear, practice-ready pathway in VET that helps learners, trainers, and SMEs plan succession proactively strengthening continuity, competitiveness, and regional resilience.
Why this matters now
Succession planning blends technical, managerial, and interpersonal skills: from valuing a business and transferring tacit knowledge, to engaging employees, customers, and new leadership. These competences rarely sit in a single curriculum. By mainstreaming them within VET and supported by digital tools and real-world tasks, we can make succession skills accessible, credible, and portable.
What we’re building
In the framework of our project, we are co-designing:
- A competence profile that clarifies the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to support SME succession in different contexts.
- Modular training mapped to learning outcomes, with flexible routes for learners and trainers.
- An online course and work-based learning components so that participants can apply methods in authentic settings with SMEs.
- Open learning resources that VET providers can adopt, adapt, and translate.
Our aim is simple: turn a complex transition into a teachable, assessable set of competences that improve employability for learners and give SMEs a practical roadmap.
How we work
Co-creation sits at the center of our approach. We involve VET teachers, learners, SME owners, and support organizations at each design checkpoint. We prioritize clarity (learning outcomes and assessment rubrics), usability (short, applied tasks and templates), and inclusion (accessible formats, multilingual options, and real examples from diverse sectors). This means our materials won’t live only on paper; they will be taught, tried, and improved through feedback.
An invitation
If you are a VET provider, we invite you to integrate or pilot modules and share your feedback. If you are an SME or intermediary, we welcome your participation in workshops and case studies. If you are a learner or trainer, we encourage you to enroll in the pilots and help us shape the tools you will use in practice.
Safeguarding SMEs Through Skills: A VET Pathway for Business Succession
Across Europe, many small and medium-sized enterprises face leadership transition in the coming years. Poorly managed handovers can jeopardize jobs, tacit knowledge, and local value chains. This project responds by creating a practice-ready pathway in Vocational Education and Training (VET) that equips learners, trainers, and SMEs with the skills and tools to plan succession proactively and inclusively.
What we aim to achieve
- Define the role and skills: A clear competence profile describing the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to support SME succession in different contexts.
- Teach what matters: A modular curriculum mapped to learning outcomes and EQF levels, with flexible routes for learners and trainers.
- Learn by doing: An online course paired with work-based learning, enabling participants to apply tools with real SMEs.
- Share openly: Open resources such as templates, case studies, checklists, and micro-learning assets that VET providers can adopt, adapt, translate, and reuse.
How we work
The project uses co-design with VET teachers, learners, SME owners, and support organizations. Content is tested iteratively through pilots in partner countries and refined using learner analytics and stakeholder feedback. We prioritize:
- Clarity: transparent learning outcomes, assessment rubrics, and evidence portfolios.
- Usability: short, applied tasks anchored in real business scenarios.
- Inclusion & access: multilingual materials, accessibility-by-design (WCAG principles), and practical guidance for different sectors and firm sizes.
- Trust & compliance: GDPR-aligned research and data practices.
Who benefits
- VET learners and trainers gain a structured pathway and credentials to work on succession challenges.
- SMEs and intermediaries receive practical methods to document critical processes, manage knowledge transfer, and prepare teams for change.
- Regions and ecosystems retain skills, jobs, and competitiveness through smoother ownership transitions.
What to expect
Over the project’s lifecycle, we will release the competence profile, curriculum modules, an online learning environment, and pilot opportunities with VET providers. Public events, newsletters, and partner channels will share progress, invitations to workshops, and new resources as they launch.
Programme: Erasmus+ (VET) — Cooperation Partnerships
Scope: Multi-country consortium across the EU
Duration: 24 months (project start: February 2025)
Outputs: Competence profile, modular curriculum, online course + WBL, open toolkit, policy/practice briefs, and more!
ASSET TEC (Project Coordinator): Orchestrating Delivery and Building Momentum
Effective projects depend on quiet, consistent coordination. As the project’s coordinator, ASSET TEC leads the day-to-day engine that turns plans into progress facilitating collaboration across countries, keeping timelines realistic, and translating decisions into practical tools for partners, learners, and SMEs.
What ASSET TEC leads
- Program & Governance: Chairs coordination and WP check-ins, maintains the roadmap and risk log, and ensures decisions are captured and followed through.
- Quality & Evidence: Aligns deliverables with the results framework, sets light-touch QA checkpoints, and promotes evidence-informed iteration (from early user feedback to pilot metrics).
- Collaboration Infrastructure: Keeps shared templates, calendars, and repositories tidy and accessible; supports partners in using common formats for faster reviews.
- External Visibility: Represents the project at conferences and practitioner events to build early adoption pathways among VET providers, SME intermediaries, and policy networks.
What happened in the first period
- Planning & Meetings: Finalized the coordination calendar; ran structured partner meetings with clear actions and timelines; aligned WP2–WP4 dependencies.
- Foundations for Quality: Agreed on milestone definitions, acceptance criteria, and a simple review cycle that keeps outputs moving while safeguarding quality.
Outreach & Presentation: Introduced the project at the Chamber of Magnesia (02/07/2025) and the Chamber of Larissa (17/07/2025), raising awareness and inviting VET and SME stakeholders to engage in competence-profile validation and upcoming pilots.
From Kick-Off to Co-Creation: Where to Find Us
Our face-to-face kick-off aligned the partnership on purpose, scope, and working methods.
Key outcomes included:
- A shared roadmap linking needs analysis, competence profile, curriculum, and online course & pilots.
- Light-touch quality checkpoints and acceptance criteria for each output.
- Agreement on accessibility-by-design (WCAG principles) and multilingual practices for public materials.
- A clear communications sequence (website updates, social posts, and newsletters).
- Pilot preparation steps covering cohort definition, basic learner analytics, and feedback loops.
- The meeting closed with a practical plan and impactful next steps.
Upcoming Engagement
SME Interviews & Focus Groups – We are now inviting SMEs and intermediaries to co-shape the project’s tools by sharing lived experience of succession planning: what works, where it stalls, and which supports are missing.
The purpose behind this is to:
- Validate and prioritize the competences needed to manage ownership transfer.
- Surface pain points (knowledge capture, staff engagement, digital readiness).
- Test draft training modules and checklists/templates for usability.
Who should participate:
- SME owners/successors, general managers, HR leads, advisers/intermediaries (e.g., chambers, clusters).
- Sectors: open; micro, small, and medium firms welcome.
Data & privacy
Participation is voluntary. We collect only the information necessary for research and improvement of project outputs. Data are processed under our GDPR notice, stored securely, and used solely for this project. An information sheet and consent form will be provided during each session.
From National Insights to European Training Solutions: BS4INNO Enters its Development Phase
Following the successful completion of the national mapping and needs analysis phase, the BS4INNO project is now moving decisively into its next stage: the development of structured, practical support tools for business succession across Europe.
Over the past months, the project gathered valuable insights from SME owners who have experienced, or are currently preparing for, generational transition, as well as from Business Succession Planners (BSPs) who guide these complex processes. The national reports highlighted recurring challenges: informal planning practices, legal and governance uncertainties, communication barriers within families, and varying levels of advisory preparedness. These findings have not remained theoretical.
Building directly on this evidence, the project partners have formally agreed on a Business Succession Planner competence profile, establishing a shared European reference framework that defines the knowledge, skills and professional capabilities required to effectively support SME succession processes.
This competence profile now serves as the foundation for the development of a structured set of training modules currently under design. The modules aim to strengthen the quality and consistency of succession advisory services, while ensuring that support remains practical, adaptable and responsive to the real-life dynamics of family businesses.
A significant milestone in this transition from analysis to development was the second in-person consortium meeting, hosted by Odisee in Brussels in December 2025. The meeting was not just a coordination gathering, but a dedicated co-design and strategic alignment workshop. Partners worked collaboratively to refine the structure of the training modules, align learning outcomes, and ensure coherence between the competence framework and the educational content under development.
Importantly, the discussions remained grounded in the realities captured during the national research phase. The voices of SME owners who expressed concerns about continuity, responsibility, governance and communication continue to guide the design of the training materials. Likewise, the perspectives of BSPs inform the practical orientation of the modules, ensuring that they reflect real advisory contexts rather than purely theoretical constructs.
With this momentum, BS4INNO now enters a key development phase. The focus shifts from understanding the challenges of business succession to equipping professionals and SMEs with structured, high-quality tools that can make succession planning more strategic, transparent and sustainable.
The coming months will see the continued development and refinement of these modules, laying the groundwork for future testing, stakeholder engagement and broader dissemination.
BS4INNO is steadily advancing toward its core objective: strengthening the ecosystem of support around family business succession and contributing to more resilient, future-ready SMEs across Europe.
Odisee – Advancing Co-Design and Co-Creation in Business Succession Training
As a key academic partner within BS4INNO, Odisee plays a pivotal role in translating project insights into structured educational content under WP3.
With the Business Succession Planner competence profile now formally agreed, the project has entered a crucial design stage. Odisee contributes its pedagogical expertise and experience in applied higher education to ensure that the training modules being developed are coherent, structured, and aligned with real-world advisory practice.
In December 2025, Odisee hosted the project’s second two-day, in-person consortium meeting in Brussels; a milestone moment dedicated to co-design and strategic alignment. The meeting was organised as an interactive working session, bringing partners together to collaboratively refine module architecture, define learning objectives, and ensure consistency between the competence framework and the training content under development.
The emphasis throughout the discussions was on co-creation. Rather than developing modules in isolation, partners worked collectively to integrate insights from national research findings, SME feedback, and BSP experience. This approach strengthens both the relevance and the transferability of the future training programme.
Odisee’s facilitation ensured that the development process remained participatory, structured and outcome-oriented. By combining academic rigour with practical application, the partner helps anchor the training design in methodological clarity while preserving responsiveness to SME realities.
Two Days of Structured Co-Design: From Competence Mapping to Curriculum Drafting
The second in-person consortium meeting of BS4INNO took place in December 2025 at Odisee’s premises in Brussels. Over two intensive working days, partners moved from research findings to concrete educational design decisions under WP3.
Day 1: Mapping Knowledge, Skills and Competences
The meeting opened with a presentation by Odisee on the methodology for constructing a structured competence map for BSPs. Partners then divided into national teams, each drawing directly from their respective national reports.
Using a hands-on workshop approach, each team identified the knowledge areas, skills and competences they considered essential for effective succession advisory. Each idea was written individually on Post-it notes (one concept per note) and displayed on a shared whiteboard. Deloitte contributed through a Miro board, with its inputs transferred to the physical wall to ensure full integration.
Once collected, the consortium collaboratively clustered similar concepts and examined patterns of duplication. The working assumption was clear: recurring themes across countries indicated higher perceived importance. This allowed the group to move beyond isolated perspectives and build a shared European understanding of BSP competences.
During the afternoon session, partners reviewed the Multinational Report and discussed its implications for the professional level of succession planners. A key strategic decision was reached: the BSP profile should correspond to EQF Level 6–7 qualifications, rather than the initially considered Level 4–5. This shift strengthens the positioning of business succession planning as a high-level professional function requiring advanced expertise.
The day concluded with the collective development of an empathy map for a BSP, constructed using the same participatory methodology. This exercise helped contextualise competences within the practical realities, pressures and responsibilities faced by succession advisors.
Day 2: Drafting the Curriculum Architecture
Building on the competence map and empathy analysis, the second day focused on translating these insights into a first draft of the training curriculum.
Partners engaged in extensive discussion on potential modules, sub-modules and indicative content areas. The objective was not yet finalisation, but the creation of a coherent structural framework grounded in the mapped competences.
By the end of the day, the consortium had produced an initial curriculum draft and agreed on the next operational steps:
- An online workshop between 12–16 January 2026 to finalise the curriculum
- Finalisation of WP2 in January 2026
- Adjustments to selected WP3 deadlines
- Joint communication efforts, with AIVD and Deloitte collaborating on WP2 dissemination and Odisee and Deloitte coordinating WP3-related communication
The Brussels meeting marked a decisive shift from analysis to structured design. Through collaborative mapping, prioritisation and curriculum drafting, the consortium established a shared foundation for the forthcoming training modules.