On July 2021, the new project « S-ACCESS – SMEs ACCESS to international public procurements » was launched. Funded under the COSME programme of the EU – Call « COS-PPOUT-2020-2-03, the project is coordinated by DITECFER (the Railway Technologies cluster in Italy) and has as partners the railway clusters i-Trans (France), Rail.S (Germany), Järnvägsklustret (Sweden), MAFEX (Spain), RCSEE (Serbia and Southeast Europe) and Rail Alliance (United Kingdom).

The project is a spin-off of the « PERES ESCP-4i » and of the « EXXTRA ESCP-4x ». The partners, in fact, are fully committed to take their internationalisation services to a higher level, focusing on new approaches to help their SME members overcome a set of obstacles (organisational, technical, legal, financial…) they face when attempting to participate in international public procurements.

The target countries of the S-ACCESS project are USA, Canada and Norway.

The project will last 36 months (from 1st July 2021 to 30 June 2024) and is divided in two phases:

• a Preparatory Phase lasting 15 months, where the partners will develop solutions for each type of obstacle;
• an Implementation Phase lasting 21 months, where the partners will test their strategy and assist the SMEs on the field.