Seminar: 'How to Develop a Convincing Project Strategy for EU Funding: Do's and Dont's for Local and Regional Actors' - Montesquieu Instituut

Target group

This practical seminar will be of great added value to regional or local public administrations, authorities or bodies in charge of or involved in the design, development and implementation of projects subject to compliance with European fund resources. The seminar will also be of particular interest to those persons, NGOs, associations, university departments and consultants that are planning to apply (for the first time) for such EU project tenders and calls for proposal.

Description

This seminar will address many issues and provide participants with practical advice and techniques, as well as allowing them to exchange experiences. The seminar will consequently enable them to produce a convincing proposal, to establish sustainable local and regional partnerships and strategies, and align them to the Lisbon targets, to build capacities and communicate results, hence developing added-value projects for their territory. It will thus allow local and regional participants to quickly grasp the most relevant guiding principles and rules when it comes to preparing a bid for EU funding and increasing its absorption capacity.

A specific glossary of the main EU financing instruments screened from the local and regional actors’ perspective as well as their web links will be provided for each participant (seminar kit). The participants will be equipped with a sample of “project proposals” devised from previous seminars to illustrate what such dossiers may look like (Do’s), and where possible obstacles are encountered (Don’ts).

Learning methodology

A variety of training methods will be used, such as lectures and presentations, including concrete examples, discussions and an interactive group exercise preparing real cases subject to an evaluation panel. This practical workshop, in which the audience will be divided into groups, is proven to be of particular relevance to the participants (based on previous experiences) as they have the opportunity to apply in practice what has been delivered during the previous sessions.

Finally, the seminar will offer participants the opportunity to network with peers with the same interests and give them the potential to identify new partners for future projects.

Objectives

Based on the co-funding principle, EU aid and programmes constitute a rich well of resources for European municipalities and regions. There are hundreds of EU support actions available to regional and local players.

In this sense, the funds pot is big: with room for the cohesion policy instruments (ERDF, ESF, CF) and a budget exceeding €308,000 million (much higher than the budget of the previous period); room for the instruments of the VII Framework Programme (€53,000 million); or those of other initiatives which are less known or new such as ENPI, CIP, LIFE programmes; or very specific, such as the new instruments JASPERS, JEREMIE and JESSICA that include funding from international financial institutions (e.g. European Investment Bank); as well as many others.

This is a wide range indeed, but one should not forget that there are transversal elements such as the Strategy for Growth and Jobs - the “Lisbon Strategy” - and its successor, the “EU 2020 strategy: for a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”. These strategies influence the access to aid, since for the current and future (2014-2020) period its objectives should be directly reflected (“earmarking”) in the proposals requesting EU funding.

In this context, participants will be better prepared to compete in the ever-changing arena of EU funding. Each programme or initiative has its own objectives or specific characteristics, but as far as the “basic rules of the game” are concerned (e.g. submission of proposal or offers, management and invoicing), elements converge and show a harmonised pattern.

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