anx_I__cpt_21__cpt_3__cpt_1__text_3

However, SMEs have – despite their important economic and employment share and significant innovation potential – several types of problems to become more innovative and more competitive, including shortage of financial resources and access to finance, shortage in skills in innovation management, weaknesses in networking and cooperation with external parties, and insufficient use of public procurement to foster innovation in SMEs. Although Europe produces a similar number of start-up companies to the United States, European SMEs are finding it much harder to grow into large companies than their US counterparts. The internationalised business environment with increasingly interlinked value chains puts further pressure on them. SMEs need to enhance their research and innovation capacity. They need to generate, take up and commercialise new knowledge and business ideas faster and to a greater extent to compete successfully on fast evolving global markets. The challenge is to stimulate more innovation in SMEs, thereby enhancing their competitiveness, sustainability and growth.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-11-03 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.