ABSTRACT
At the Lisbon Special European Council: Towards a Europe of Innovation and
Knowledge of March 2000,1 the European Union (EU) Heads of States and
Governments agreed to make the EU ‘the most competitive and dynamic
knowledge-driven economy by 2010’ (European Council, 2000). In 2010, it is gen-
erally agreed that the outcomes of the Lisbon Strategy are at best mixed. The
European Commission (EC) report Europe 2020: A Strategy for European Community
Growth observes that the EU was moving in the right direction before the global
financial crisis but this event wiped out many of the gains, so that strong economic
policy coordination and growth based on knowledge and innovation are now even
more essential than before (European Commission, 2010). Achieving these goals
will require continuing modernization and there is a common belief that this will
entail the development and adoption of e-learning in business and industry, includ-
ing small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs). This chapter outlines e-learning in
European SMEs and discusses the quality assurance (QA) issues in this context.