The European Commission via this service contract aims to support the development of e-leadership skills.

The contracting parties, empirica in co-operation with some of the world’s leading business schools and other stakeholder groups, aim to demonstrate new ways of developing e-leadership skills for SMEs, start-ups and entrepreneurs at different business schools and universities in Europe, encouraging the development of attractive, adapted, up-to-date educational offers able to increase the supply to the economy of experienced and highly qualified leaders in ICT-based innovation.

There is also a need for more precise definitions and for metrics of e-leadership skills for entrepreneurs, freelancers, SMEs, start-ups and gazelles. The proposed body of work aims to deliver the most appropriate and useful definitions and metrics, and demonstrate what kinds of e-leaders are associated with each specific kind of business setting to improve monitoring of demand and supply of these skills.
Given that among e-leaders, young entrepreneurs (not only digital entrepreneurs) and freelancers are expected to play an increasingly important role, a special focus in the proposed work is placed on the role of e-leadership skills as enablers of successful entrepreneurial activity.