Skillnets Ltd, the independent body which began work last year to promote industry-led training, has announced that more than 2,500 companies have been approved to participate in 38 recently established enterprise networks.

The Training Networks Programme run by Skillnets provides support and funding for groups of companies with shared training needs which get together to design, co-ordinate and develop training programmes.

Training networks approved by Skillnets range in size from 10 companies to 500 companies and have emerged from a range of sectors. What is unique about this form of training, according to Skillnets chief executive Ms Maire Hunt, is that the enterprises take full ownership of the programme and are empowered to manage the whole process themselves.

For the first round of projects Skillnets has committed £5.4 million (€6.86 million) and participating companies have undertaken to spend £2.9 million on training activity.

The three-year Training Network Programme was launched by Skillnets last June with a total fund of £9 million from the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment and £1.7 million from the European Social Fund.

A further group of networks is currently under development and Skillnets expects the number of companies adopting this new training approach to double to 5,000 by the end of this year.

A major research report, which explores best practice in business-led training networks, was presented at a Skillnets conference, Making Networks Work, in Dublin yesterday.

The study of Irish and international business networks, which was commissioned by Skillnets, highlights how companies have achieved significant competitive advantage from working together. There was some resistance among delegates at the conference to the idea of collaborating closely with competitors but the author of the report, Mr Gerard Doyle, said that the core competitive issues were outside the context of the network.