This publication is the practical and visible outcome of a research project/study successfully submitted by Quaternaire Portugal to the Technical Assistance Operational Programme (TAOP) under the scope of the European Social Fund (ESF).

The Training-Action projects are part of ESF intervention heritage over the last three programming cycles of Community support. Throughout that period, the intervention model and the methodological strategies followed have consolidated and specialised on a sectorial basis, thus shaping several intervention programmes whose guiding approaches had a growing specific identity.

Within ESF, Training-Action as a model consisted in a conceptual break in terms of training interventions; it became the main paradigm of the effort to bring the training responses close to the enterprises’ development needs, particularly to micro, small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The publication is organised as follows:

• Chapter 1 places the Training-Action model within the public policies on business support;

• Chapter 2 expands the distinctive identity that characterizes Training-Action;

• Chapter 3 describes the evolution path followed by Training-Action in Portugal;

• Chapter 4 presents a roadmap of critical subjects;

• Chapter 5 anticipates which room for improvement the Training-Action model has.