What does UK-EU trade deal mean for your investment and trade with Scotland? Scotland’s deep connections with Europe remain.
Scotland, as part of the UK, may well have left the European Union, but Scotland’s deep and longstanding connections with Europe remain. Our universities and workplaces are open to you, always. As one of the most innovative UK locations for investment and trade, Scotland continues its close relationships with EU countries and businesses, welcoming those who choose to live and work here.
Be part of Scotland's green recovery
What does the post-Brexit UK-EU trade deal mean for your investment and trade with Scotland?
Scotland is no longer part of the EU, but as a progressive nation, Scotland is committed to staying as close to Europe as possible. We continue to work collaboratively with our European friends, around our shared values and interests to tackle global issues together, and towards a fair and green recovery from the pandemic.
We’re actively engaged in European networks and continue to strengthen our relationships in EU markets, supported by Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise, our international partners, networks and innovation hubs. We’re open to sharing our learning and expertise to support policy and funding developments on green projects that will create opportunities for businesses, universities, colleges and communities across Scotland.
Our support extends to Scotland’s enterprise and skills agencies, helping companies, whether based in Scotland or setting up operations here, to adapt their business and supply chains to the changing business environment. This means building resilience and supporting investment in people, technology and markets that will pay dividends longer term.
Hydrogen is rapidly emerging across the international community as a sustainable solution for the decarbonisation of the economy. Scotland is prepared to play its full part together with other European nations. The Scottish Government is investing £100 million over the next five years opens in a new window to support a green recovery and Scotland’s transition to net zero.
We’ve set up innovation and investment hubs in Dublin, London, Brussels, Berlin and Paris. This is part of wider work across government, partners and businesses to support trade, investment, innovation and relations with other governments in Europe. These hubs are the ideal platform to explore investment opportunities in Scotland. And an opportunity to work with others, with Scottish industry and universities.
Each hub is different and tailored to the opportunities present in the market it’s located in. As well as promoting trade and inward investment, the hubs also cover broader economic opportunities, including:
Promoting Scotland's research, innovation, industrial, social and cultural strengths
Building diplomatic relations between governments
Pursuing cultural collaborations
Exploring collaborative research and innovation opportunities
Our first innovation and investment hub, in Dublin, was launched in February 2016 to serve as our representation in the Republic of Ireland. It provides dedicated support for building on the pre-existing links between the Republic of Ireland and Scotland. The Dublin hub aims to bring together us and our agencies, as well as public and private partners, to:
Promote trade and investment links
Strengthen relations between government
Enable greater partnership working on economic, academic and innovation projects
The Dublin hub arranges and assists with trade missions, ministerial visits, and conversations between governments at an official level. It also links up Scottish and Irish businesses that might be interested in events or opportunities in either country.
The Dublin hub works across a range of sectors, including financial services, creative arts, culture and heritage, renewables, low carbon, clean tech and energy efficiency.
Our London innovation and investment hub, named Scotland House London, operates as a collaborative project between the Scottish Government opens in a new window, Scotland’s enterprise agencies and VisitScotland. Scotland House provides a permanent presence in London to:
Pursue economic and business benefits for businesses
Raise the profile of Scottish investment opportunities
Support the development of international collaborations and research partnerships
Provide opportunities to secure funding for innovation and research
Strengthen our inter-governmental relations
Help protect Scotland's place in Europe
Scotland House London also provides companies based in Scotland with a low cost, low risk and flexible home from home in which to engage with global businesses.
Once you’ve set up operations in Scotland, are trading and committed to growth, Scotland House community membership is open to you. Benefits include access to facilities, meeting rooms and event space. Take a virtual tour.
Scotland has had a long-established presence in Brussels, celebrating 20 years in Scotland House at Rond-Point Schuman.
With Scotland’s newly established network of innovation and investment hubs across Europe, operations in Scotland House Brussels have stepped up. This gives us an even more effective platform to adapt to the changing business environment and enhance our commitment to playing an active role in Europe, supporting our collaborative approach to working with Scottish, EU and international stakeholders.
Scotland House Brussels is the window to Scotland for the EU and wider European and international partners in Brussels. It’s a fully integrated operation providing services to support Scotland's economic growth, diplomatic interests and cultural promotion at the EU level.
We use our expertise and experience to promote Scotland's innovation capability and attract EU investment to Scotland. We also support Scottish organisations to build skills, capacity relationships and productive international networks in key opportunity areas.
Our German innovation and investment hub opened in April 2018 to foster the right conditions and relationships that Scottish companies and organisations need to internationalise and grow:
Promoting investment between German and Scottish businesses and organisations
Increasing Scottish Government influence and engagement with Germany
Encouraging collaboration between business, research, education and cultural institutions
Building on Scotland's reputation as a destination of choice to work, study and visit
The hub is a focal point for Scottish Government engagement across central Europe and jointly houses Scottish Government and Scottish Development International staff. It’s located at Wilhelmstraße 70 in central Berlin.
Our French innovation and investment hub opened in autumn 2018. It will help to:
Increase Scottish Government influence and engagement with France
Build on existing trade and investment activity to boost Scotland’s trade with France, including supporting successful trade missions to help Scottish companies win business, and to identify and deliver investment projects that create jobs in Scotland
Promote strong links between French and Scottish businesses, academia and other organisations and to identify innovation-focused opportunities in France
Encourage more collaboration between business, research, education and cultural institutions
Build on Scotland's reputation as a welcoming destination of choice to live, work, study and visit and do business
The hub is a central point for the Scottish Government to engage across France and jointly houses Scottish Government and Scottish Development International staff. It’s located at 16 Rue d’Anjou in central Paris.
We do great things with data. Scotland is set to become the 'Data Capital of Europe' with an ambitious 10-year Data-Driven Innovation programme to meet the needs of businesses, both now and in the future.
Whether you’re a wholesaler, retailer, foodservice operator, importer or an agent, if you're interested in buying the very best Scottish food and drink products, our international team is here to help you.
Scotland is Europe’s leading energy hub. Not only is Scotland home to Europe's largest tidal power project, it has 25% of Europe’s offshore wind and tidal resource.
We’d like to use cookies to enable functionality, to understand how you use our site, to support our marketing activities, and to help us improve the site.
Our operations are managed by Scottish Enterprise.
Cookies help Scottish Enterprise (“SE”, “us” or “we”) to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allow us to improve our website. We assume that you are happy to receive all the cookies in the categories that you elect to allow, or which are strictly necessary for the operation of our website. You can change your cookie settings at any time.
Strictly necessary cookies
These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website.
Cookie name
Purpose
Expiry
SESDI_Necessary_AllowedCookies
This cookie is used to record your preferences in regard to accepting marketing, performance or functionality cookies across the site.
1 year
se-session
This cookie is used to provide secure access to SE website features such as address lookup and form validation/submissions.
When browser is closed
Performance and analytics cookies
They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
Third party service
Purpose
Where to find out more
Google Analytics
Google Analytics helps us analyse the behaviour of users on our site, such as which pages they view, how long they spend on each page, and which elements they interact with.
Hotjar helps us analyse the behaviour of users on our site by collating data into heatmaps, scrollmaps and other visual representations. It also allows us to add short surveys to the site.
These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.
Third party service
Purpose
Where to find out more
Google Ads
Google Ads help us to show pay per click ads in Google search results. These cookies help us track who comes to our site through these ads, so we know how successful they are.
The LinkedIn Insight Tag helps us analyse the behaviour of visitors to our site who have come through LinkedIn adverts, and also helps us target advertising on LinkedIn.
SE sometimes embeds photos and video content from websites such as YouTube and Flickr. As a result, when you visit a page with content embedded from, for example, YouTube or Flickr, you may be presented with cookies from these websites. SE does not control the dissemination of these cookies. You should check the relevant third party website for more information about these.
SE will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you. However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by SE websites, or any third party websites, you can do this through your browser settings. The Help function within your browser should tell you how.
Alternatively, you may wish to visit the About Cookies website, which contains comprehensive information about cookies and how to restrict or delete cookies on a wide variety of browsers.
Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of the SDI website.
SE and our other websites use a number of suppliers who set cookies on our behalf in order to deliver the services that they are providing. We are constantly reviewing our use of cookies and, as such, this cookies policy will be regularly renewed to include up to date information about the cookies used by our suppliers. We would highly recommend that you check this page on a regular basis.
