Economic integration across and beyond Europe means that, in order to grow, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) must cooperate with larger companies, expand at international level and enjoy the support of diverse finance providers and other stakeholders. To meet these challenges, they must build understanding of and trust in their business, which in turn requires to provide a clear, concise picture of the value creation process underpinning their entire activities. This is the purpose of Integrated Reporting (IR), a holistic approach to performance measurement bridging financial and non-financial measures and based on integrated thinking covering all key elements of the business.

Sustainability issues are of common use in the world of large national or multinational companies as consequences of EU level mandatory regulations (Directive 2014/95/EU, the “Non-Financial Reporting Directive”, NFRD) and their own initiatives and purposes.

The International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) is a global coalition of regulators, investors, companies, standard setters, the accounting profession, and NGOs. Together, this coalition shares the view that communication about value creation should be the next step in the evolution of corporate reporting. The International Framework has been developed to meet this need and provide a foundation for the future. (www.theiirc.org

European SMEs have been experimenting with IR, but so far on a very limited scale. The idea underpinning this project is to distil, out of the experience with IR across Europe, the elements that can fit the specific challenges faced by SMEs and turn them into guidelines and training materials on the practicalities of IR for SMEs. The key objective is to strengthen the awareness in running business considering the sustainability as well and support the SMEs in developing integrated thinking and value creation.

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.

Partnership:

University partners:
   • Budapest Business School, Budapest (Hungary) – Coordinator
   • Leeds Beckett University, Leeds (United Kingdom)
   • Hochschule Rhein-Waal, Kleve (Germany)
   • University of Udine, Udine (Italy)
   • Wroclaw University of Economics, Wroclaw (Poland)
   • Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca (Romania)
Non-university partners:
   • MAC-Team aisbl, Brussels (Belgium)
   • EFAA – European Federation of Accountants and Auditors for SMEs, Brussels (Belgium)
   • Business Hungary, Budapest (Hungary)