Learning and Development Incentive Scheme for SMEs

Employers that give their employees the opportunity to develop continuously are better able to retain talent. Development opportunities help keep employees motivated and contribute to the success of the organisation. Through the SLIM scheme, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment encourages learning-rich working environments within SMEs. The grant supports SMEs and partnerships in strengthening learning and development.

This enables employees to continue developing and helps organisations prepare for change.

This page explains the eligibility requirements and what you can expect from the application process.

View Enablemi’s tip

At a glance

Maximaal bedrag

€24,999 for an individual project €500,000 for a collaborative project
Resterend budget

Varies by project
Aanvragen mogelijk vanaf

19 August 2026 for individual applications 22 June 2026 for partnerships
Aanvragen mogelijk t/m

7 September 2026 for individual applications 20 July 2026 for partnerships
Subsidiepercentage

60%

The SLIM scheme aims to promote learning and development within companies and provides grants to organisations that want to establish development programmes for their employees.
The scheme focuses primarily on small and medium-sized enterprises. Due to the high level of interest, grants are allocated through a lottery.
The SLIM grant is provided by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. Applications must focus on developing methods for learning and development.
Applications that are not selected in the lottery can be resubmitted every six months.

Objective of SLIM: promoting learning and development

The SLIM grant aims to support organisations in structurally strengthening learning and development in the workplace. This helps employees continuously develop their knowledge and skills and adapt to changes in their work. In this way, the grant contributes to both a future-proof organisation and the sustainable employability of employees in the labour market.

For individual organisations and partnerships

The SLIM grant supports both individual organisations and partnerships in improving learning and development. While individual applications focus on the applicant’s own organisation, the grant for partnerships goes one step further. It encourages organisations to invest jointly in training and development, allowing knowledge to be shared, sectors to be strengthened and a greater impact to be achieved than would be possible individually.

Resubmitting your application

Was your application not selected in the lottery? There is no need to worry: for the time being, the SLIM scheme returns every six months. You can simply resubmit your application during the next application period.

There is also a SLIM training grant. This has a different application period. Contact us for more information!

Provided by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment

The SLIM grant is provided by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. An important condition is that your application must focus on developing a method for learning and development. Fortunately, we can help you with that!

About this text: To make it clear and easy to read for you, we have rewritten the legal text of the regulation. This means that we must state that no rights can be derived from this text. Just to be precise.

Tip from Enablemi

The SLIM scheme is highly suitable for kick-starting your internal learning and development plan. We applied for the SLIM grant ourselves and used it to establish the Enablemi Academi!