Mondragon Unibertsitatea’s Faculty of Business Studies leads the European SAMExperience project to foster sustainable alliances in SMEs
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Mondragon Unibertsitatea’s Faculty of Business Studies leads the European SAMExperience project to foster sustainable alliances in SMEs
European Project
Mondragon Unibertsitatea’s Faculty of Business Studies leads the European SAMExperience project to foster sustainable alliances in SMEs
The SAMExperience (Sustainable Alliance Manager Experience) project, funded by the European Union’s Erasmus+ programme (KA220-HED – Cooperation partnerships in higher education), began in October 2023 and will run for three years. Its goal is to train a new key professional figure for European SMEs: the Sustainable Alliance Manager (SAM), capable of managing sustainable alliances and addressing the challenges of the green transition
2025·07·24
Small and medium-sized enterprises, which make up 99% of the European business fabric, face challenges such as innovation, competitiveness, and sustainability—often with limited resources. In this context, developing strategic and sustainable alliances emerges as one of the best ways to support their growth and transformation.
The role of the Sustainable Alliance Manager is therefore crucial. This figure combines collaborative skills with green competences, enabling the creation and management of smart, sustainable, inter-business partnerships.
In the short term, the project aims to design an international, digital, flexible, and personalised learning experience to train Sustainable Alliance Managers. In the long term, SAMExperience seeks to equip professionals in the industrial sector with the necessary skills to lead and sustain collaborative and sustainable alliances from within SMEs.
International collaboration and leadership by Mondragon Unibertsitatea
The project is coordinated by the Faculty of Business Studies at Mondragon Unibertsitatea and includes international partners:
- Universitatea de Vest din Timisoara (Romania)
- Lietuvos verslo kolegija (Lithuania)
- Università degli Studi di Foggia (Italy)
- Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny w Katowicach (Poland)
- Valuedo Srl (Italy)
The consortium is working together to identify training needs, define the SAM profile’s materials and competences, and design a digital platform that will enable students in Business and Engineering degrees to develop these skills.
Research on future competences
At the XIII International Workshop on Human Resource Management—organized by Universidad Pablo de Olavide, University of Cádiz, and the European Institute for Sustainability in Management (IESG)—the Mondragon Unibertsitatea team presented the study “Alliance Manager Competences for the Future: New Ways of Working.”
The study, based on literature review and functional analysis, identifies 21 key competences grouped into three categories (personal, interpersonal, and technical), necessary to effectively perform the Alliance Manager role. These competences are framed within two complementary profiles:
- Corporate Alliance Manager
- Operational Alliance Manager
Both profiles are essential to design, coordinate, and evaluate high-quality strategic alliances. Participation in the congress helped validate the relevance of the SAM profile in the current and future landscape of European SMEs, shaped by the digital and green transition.
International webinar series: sharing knowledge, activating alliances.
One of the project’s core components has been the organisation of a series of international webinars open to the European academic and business ecosystems. These sessions aim to build community and disseminate project insights. Up until July 2025, four online webinars have taken place, gathering hundreds of participants from various countries:
November 12, 2024
Webinar: Collaborative and Green Skills: Competences to Lead the Sustainability Transition
Organised by Lithuania Business College, in collaboration with Mondragon Unibertsitatea and the University of Foggia, this first webinar highlighted the need to develop collaborative and green skills to successfully lead the sustainability transition. The initial project outcomes were shared, and the SAM’s role as a bridge between strategy, sustainability, and innovation was discussed.
January 29, 2025
Managing Alliances in the Green Transition Era: Learnings from Spain and Lithuania
This second webinar allowed for the exchange of best practices and lessons learned on sustainable alliance management from the perspectives of companies and institutions in Spain and Lithuania. Real-life cases were presented, along with discussions on barriers, opportunities, and tools for consolidating impactful green alliances.
April 14, 2025
UVT Strategic Partners Group & SAMExperience: Navigating Strategic Alliances for a Sustainable Future
Organised by Universitatea de Vest din Timisoara, the third webinar offered an institutional and strategic perspective on the creation of sustainable alliances. It explored how universities can act as collaboration hubs and how to build intersectoral networks aligned with the SDGs and business transformation.
June 4, 2025
Sustainable Alliance Manager: ESG Reporting and Strategic Collaboration for a Green Future
This final webinar focused on the connection between the SAM role and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) reporting. It explored how the Sustainable Alliance Manager can contribute to ESG compliance and embed sustainability into the strategic metrics of industrial organisations.
Each webinar has served not only as a meeting point but also as a shared learning space, boosting key capability development and validating the project’s approach.
Next steps
The SAMExperience team continues to develop a digital learning platform that will allow students and professionals to be trained as Sustainable Alliance Managers, combining technical, collaborative, and sustainable skills.
Moreover, the consortium plans to publish new training resources and host open events for the business ecosystem in the second half of 2025.
To stay updated on the project’s progress, you can visit the official SAMExperience website, follow its social media channels (LinkedIn and Facebook), and subscribe to its newsletter.