Synergies between Horizon Europe and the European Regional Development Fund programmes
On 5th July 2022, the European Commission published a practical and user-friendly guidance on new opportunities to maximise the synergies between Horizon Europe (HE) and the European Regional Development Fund programmes.
Bringing Cohesion Policy and HE closer together has been an important priority for the Commission in recent years, particularly when preparing for 2021-2027. The aim is to reinforce the impact of both policies by creating complementarities, especially in less developed and peripheral regions.
The purpose of this guidance is to outline the new opportunities available to the managing authorities (MAs) of the Cohesion Policy programmes, national HE contact points and HE project promoters. It focuses on synergies between HE and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) programmes.
It is also intended to make it easier to use the relevant mechanisms, covering legal and implementation details of a range of opportunities for achieving operational synergies, such as the Seal of Excellence, transfer, cumulative funding, co-funded and institutionalised Partnerships, Teaming, and upstream/downstream synergies including missions.
Public bodies intending to support Seal of Excellence holders can find interesting suggestions and examples for their actions. It also highlights how regional Smart Specialisation priorities can be supported by the funding of demonstrator projects.
The theme of funding synergies has been the focus of a number of Interreg Europe Policy Learning Platform activities and project good practices that include the following:
- Policy brief: Towards synergies between S3P-Industry and Interreg Europe projects
- Good Practice: Innovation voucher for Seal of Excellence project
Further details on Policy Learning Platform activities can be found here.