As a follow-up to the Commission’s European Defence Action Plan acknowledging that European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) may be used by Member States in the defence sector, the European Defence Agency publishes the “EDA’s ESIF web-platform” to provide any potential defence-related stakeholder (including MoDs, industry, research-and-technology organisations, academia, clusters) both with:
- an interactive analytical mapping on ‘sources’ of regional, national, and transnational calls for proposals under Structural Funds and
- respective contact details of the hundreds ESIF managing authorities ultimately in charge for funding allocation.
For the financial framework running till 2020, ESIF are made up of 5 specific funds totaling more than 450 billion euros, matched nationally by additional 180 billion euros. In the defence sector, ESIF may co-fund productive investment projects, and support the modernisation of the defence supply chains.
EDA’s work supporting access to ESIF is focused on the two main funds (together commonly referred as “Structural Funds”):
- the European Regional and Development Fund (ERDF) and its “Interreg” share, which can support - inter alia - defence activities and dual-use activities in research and innovation at regional, national and transnational/cooperative level;
- the European Social Fund (ESF), which can support the development and enhancement of key skills and competencies (KSC) for defence.
With regard to the ERDF, EDA has been technically assisting successfully funded pilot R&T project applications. Concerning ESF for KSC, an EDA’s procedure aimed at supporting free-of-charge the application to the ESF for selected pilot KSC-related projects is currently underway through Ministries of Defence.
The ESIF web-platform complements the successful EDA’s “COSME web-platform” launched one year ago to facilitate access to finance, grants and free-of-charge advisory services for defence-related SMEs and clusters. For further details: esif@eda.europa.eu or cosme@eda.europa.eu
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