ENI CBC IN MOTION: May 2018
It’s done! The last spring month has brought great news. The ENI CBC community has officially cut the ribbon of project implementation. However, there is a mystery around the winner: who jumped over the frontrunners and gained victory?
Our congratulations to Black Sea Basin! Having all preparatory actions officially finalised and projects awarded, it now passes to project implementation. The signature of the first grant contracts is expected in June.
Calls open, calls close
Project implementation is a long-desired target for all ENI CBC programmes, but the work that stands behind, is not to be underestimated. Especially, if we talk about management of calls for proposals.
Poland – Russia launched its first call last month (deadline 16 July) and got into gear. Four programme training events dedicated to the call and its requirements were attended by 350 potential applicants from Poland and Russia in April and May. And still more to come! Four practical workshops regarding preparation of application forms will be held in Poland and Russia in June. More support for potential applicants may be found on the programme website: the application pack in the national languages, programme manual on project implementation and guidelines on expenditure verification were made available there.
Boarding completed in case of Romania-Rep. of Moldova programme, which closed on 9 and 21 May two calls for proposals (soft and hard projects). The calls welcomed cooperation ideas addressing culture promotion and heritage preservation, infrastructure development, support to education and innovation and common challenges in the field of safety and security. The calls were supported by 17 events for potential applicants held in both countries, including information sessions on programme funding and requirements, trainings on filling in the application form and a partnership forum.
Back-to-back follows Romania-Ukraine which closed its 1st and 2nd calls for proposals (hard and soft projects) on 17 May. The first statistics will be available later this month and we will come back to it in our next bulletin.
Closed calls in details
While waiting for more news from the recent calls, let’s discover together some interesting facts about the ones which were closed last month.
32 applications received in the 3rd call of South-East Finland – Russia contribute to all four thematic objectives of the programme: 13 applications will support education and innovation, 10 will deal with business and SME development, 7 will address environmental issues and 2 will promote border management and security. An almost equal partnership of 47 Finnish and 59 Russian partners is observed, with majority of lead beneficiaries coming from Finland (24).
Despite being a freshman, Lithuania-Russia made the grade, closing its 1st call on 10 April with 57 applications submitted for a total value of €34,32 million (€30,88 million available programme funding). The two most popular priorities are promotion of local culture and preservation of historical heritage (47% of applications submitted) and promotion of social inclusion and fight against poverty (40%). 41 applications were submitted by lead beneficiaries from Lithuania. Half of application (29) involve 2 beneficiaries per project; a bigger partnership (5-6 beneficiaries per project) is foreseen by 4 applications only.
First results on applications evaluation procedure from Italia-Tunisia: the first step of the administrative and eligibility checks was concluded. 80 applications requesting over €81 million passed the procedure. The second step – quality assessment – is expected to be finalised by the end of July.
What is to come?
Even though project implementation is round about the corner, potential applicants should not feel discouraged! New funding opportunities are coming.
Two forthcoming calls for proposals were announced this month. During the meeting in Rovaniemi on 24 April, the Joint Monitoring Committee of Kolarctic has approved the dates of the 3rd call of the programme for standard projects which will be opened on 21 September (deadline 21 December) to all thematic objectives.
One more call will be launched by Karelia focused on three programme priorities in the field of business, culture and environment. The call will be open from 27 August till 15 October. Information events and regional consultations for applicants in support of the call will be organised in August and September.
The beginning of summer is going to bring a long-awaited change in the ENI CBC community – first projects started. And as usual, we will share with you every detail. Stay tuned to our social media channels! See you in summer!