Improving the Offer for SMEs Through Managing Internal Competency Gaps in Ecolabnet Project: The Case of Czestochowa University of Technology (CUT)

Proper knowledge management is of particular significance in all projects, and especially important in the case of international ones. Such projects involve actors from several countries, and thus, have to allow for considerable differences stemming from cultural differentiation, diverse work patterns, and various levels of competencies in the project’s area. The latter ones seem to be most prone to changes, and improving the level of internal competencies in the case of one of the project partners can greatly contribute to a larger success of the project as a whole. To do so, it is crucial to analyse one’s gaps of competencies and draw up a plan of introducing corrective measures in this respect. This has been done during the implementation of the Ecolabnet project, financed by Interreg, and implemented in the six partner countries: Finland, Denmark, Poland, Sweden, Estonia, Lithuania, in the years 2019-2021. All the project partners formed the project consortium, whose objective was to accelerate the development of eco-innovations in manufacturing enterprises from the SME sector in the Baltic Sea Region. One of the stages of knowledge management in the project constituted identification of own competency gasps and addressing this issue. The paper presents the process of managing the knowledge on own competency gaps, and the measures that were taken so as to eliminate them.  Additionally, the authors present the results of the survey conducted among the SMEs in the project partner countries, which illustrates the needs of the said SMEs in the area of eco-innovations. The authors also describe the steps taken so as to eliminate own competency gaps and improve the quality of CUT’s offer for SMEs based on the results of the survey.