The project is proposed to follow an existing Erasmus+ project led by Budapest Business School and Funded by the Hungarian National Agency TRUST ME – http://www.trust-me-project.eu/index.php/en/ and a former Erasmus+ project led by the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology and funded by the Luxembourg National Agency (CERTI4TRAIN - https://sites.google.com/site/certi4train/. TRUST ME developed skillcards and blended learning materials for potential SME business mentors. CERTI4TRAIN produced an ISO 17024 compliant certification scheme for trainers participating in dual mode trainings. Budapest Business School and its partners wish to further develop the mentioned projects refining, developing and integrating the results of the TRUST ME and CERTI4TRAIN projects to provide SMEs with a mechanism to access internationally certified, standardised mentoring services on offer. In addition, the project aligns the business mentoring activity with sectors of strategic importance to the local economy.
The new proposal MentorCert will complement TRUST ME results in two aspects.
First a differentiation between different levels of mentorship seems necessary. A beginner mentor is supposed to accomplish trainings of Trust me project or to prove equivalent knowledge while higher levels need the acquisition of deeper, refined soft and hard competences and also certain pre-defined real-life practical experience. In order to produce these new curricula and benchmarks MentorCert project will carry out a “preparatory analysis” work package.
Another complementation of previous results proved to be imposing: Different sectors where the SMEs are operating may need business mentors with somewhat divergent competences. According to the needs of the partners’ economic regions the project will define sectors – presumably of mutual interest – and develop supplementary mentor training curricula and practical experience benchmarks derived from the specific sectoral needs.