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The conference took place from 5-6 October 2009 in Stockholm, Sweden. The conference started with among others an opening speech of Françoise Le Bail, Deputy Director-General and SME envoy, DG Enterprise and Industry, European Commission. She indicated that “with the SBA, SMEs are increasingly put in the centre by the European Commission and hopefully also by the Member States”. She also pointed at other measures taken by the European Commission such as the SME week, launching of the Enterprise Europe Network and Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs.
 At the conference several good practices were presented. During the general sessions, three good practice premium cases were presented: the Women’s Enterprise Ambassadors in Sweden, the destigmatisation of bankruptcy in the UK and the university seminar to foster an entrepreneurial mindset among art and design students in Austria. In addition, there was a review of two good practices from the previous Charter conferences.
Furthermore, good practices were presented at the workshops organized. The themes of the workshops were among others easier access to public procurement and benchmarking of progress in SME policy in the western Balkans and in the Mediterranean, and reducing late payments. With regard to the latter, there is currently a proposal of the European Commis-sion to have public authorities pay their invoices within 30 days.
Besides workshops, also a panel discussion was held. Panellists were Gunilla Almgren (UEAPME Vice-President and First Vice Chairman of Företagarna), Ben Butters (Director European Affairs, Eurochambres) and Angele Giuliano (Entrepreneur, Malta). The discussion focused on the European recovery plan and the implementation of the Small Business Act. At the end, there was a voting by the audience among others on what they thought were the most important measures taken by the European Commission and what they thought was the most effective when transforming environmental challenges into business opportunities (i.e. support innovation, green public procurement etc.).
The conference was closed with some remarks by Françoise Le Bail and the state secretary of the Minister of EU Affairs of Sweden. | 
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On 17 & 18 March 2010, 24 researchers from 13 European Member States gathered in Brussels for a 2-days training course. The training was held at the premises of the Belgian partner ‘Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel’. During the training among others the tender documents, the type of evaluations, the concept of additionality, the methodological approach as well as the change in focus of the European Commission regarding evaluations were discussed. As part of the training, three cases were presented by senior researchers from Denmark, United Kingdom and Spain. The trainees also visited the Brussels' ENSR office.
On April 1, Margrit Habersaat passed away in her eightieth year of life, after a heart surgery from which she recovered well first but then relapsed. Many of the ENSR researchers will remember Margrit Habersaat. She was in duty for KMU-HSG from 1952 to 2004 (!) and was one of the most important persons for the Institute over a very long period of time. KMU-HSG is the Swiss Research Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship at the University of St. Gallen. Since the early nineties KMU-HSG has been an associate member of the ENSR. Margrit participated in all Observatory projects and attended several ENSR meetings. We will keep her in mind as a warm and lovely person.
