The leather industry, as a global industry, highly dependent on access to raw materials and to export markets, is in a quickly changing business environment, which is particularly challenging for SME-dominated sectors, as are the leather and leather related ones. In order to remain competitive, businesses must be able to adapt to changes. Shortage of raw materials, the globalisation of production, environmental reasons, and the change of the profile of the leather industry outside EU, have caused a consequent change in the model for the leather production in Europe. Meanwhile, Europe remains the leader in fashion, design and quality, as well as in leather science and technological innovation. There are opportunities in new technologies and new, innovative materials as well as in exports also as the demand in emerging markets is growing. Within that context, the necessary qualification requirements for working in the European leather industry must be redefined in order for the labour market to be reinvigorated with skilled professionals that will offer their full potential to the industry.LEAMAN aims to provide the instruments for this reengineering of the leather industry and offer to the existing and aspiring managers of the leather Industry the most up-to-date and according to the anticipations of required skills and training needs, knowledge and information. In order to do so, LEAMAN will produce a set of intellectual outputs that materialise the project objectives, supported by management activities and an exploitation plan that will ensure the dissemination of its results even after the project has ended. The activities include a) the development of a research report, based on desk and field research, depicting the state of the art for the leather and connected industries, b) the development of a European Qualification Framework (EQF) of the New Manager for Efficient and Innovative leather SMEs, a descriptor of qualifications based on learning outcomes, regardless of how or where these are achieved, and with ECVET scores, c) the development of the MOOC “Being a manager in an Efficient and Innovative Leather Company”; a freely accessible and open licensed training platform dedicated to the improvement of knowledge and skills of managers and potential managers, d) the creation of the Virtual Challenge Community; a community made of relevant stakeholders active in the sector of leather and connected ones, that will serve as a platform for the Innovative Leather Products Competition and that will, at the end of the project, lead to the launch of a crowd funding campaign for the winners with the most innovative leather products, and e) a Decalogue of the 10 benefits deriving from the collaboration between companies, research and training centres in developing innovative leather products.The LEAMAN partnership was established on the basis of combining the different backgrounds, experience and expertise of 7 partners from 6 countries, who have had experience in implementing transnational projects, in the field of vocational training, or in the field of leather industry, in order to complement one another regarding their role in the project. LEAMAN aims to reach a large number of persons inside and outside the partnership, using different communications activities and channels by promoting the project and its results among European involved and/or interested organizations, and, at a national and regional/local level, by promoting the project results among target organisations and end-users. Almost 1500 persons are estimated to be able to be informed about the project and benefit from its activities, including VETs, policy-makers, associations and organisations dealing with leathers, universities, research centres dealing with the project topics, companies (both the leather and the connected ones), managers of the leather industry and potential ones, managers of the leather connected industries and potential ones, and trainers.The intellectual outputs developed by LEAMAN will be concrete and transferable, so that they can be exploited even after the project conclusion, both by the partners and by other stakeholders. The research activity implemented during LEAMAN can be the starting point for implementing research activities in the field. Managers and potential managers will be offered the opportunity to access the MOOC on the platform even after the end of the project and the world of Education, Research and Industry will have the opportunity to be part of a community which will be the ground for developing innovative leather products, new projects and common initiatives.