European Commission / DG GROW

DG GROW (Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs) is a core department of the European Commission headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. Its primary mission is to uphold and develop the EU Single Market for goods and services, strengthen industrial competitiveness, reduce administrative burdens on small businesses, and address strategic supply-chain dependencies across European industrial ecosystems.

The directorate supervises two major regulatory agencies — the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) — and holds enforcement responsibilities under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, including scrutiny of public procurement bids for market-distorting foreign subsidies. It also co-chairs Horizon Europe Cluster 4 (Digital, Industry and Space), which commands a budget of €15.349 billion for 2021–2027.

Recent policy priorities (2024–2025) have included boosting biotechnology and biomanufacturing, implementing REACH chemicals regulations, and launching Net Zero Industry Academies to support clean industrial scale-up. As of December 2024, Stéphane Séjourné serves as Executive Vice-President for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy and Commissioner for Industry, SMEs and the Single Market.

Innovations touching industrial competitiveness, SME growth, clean technology scale-up, or Single Market governance are directly relevant to DG GROW's mandate, given its role in shaping EU-wide industrial and regulatory policy.