Will your business benefit from the next round of EU funds in the Digital sector?

 The big numbers

Once every seven years, the EU decides on its future budget. The new budget will start in January 2021 and it is still expected to be the first for the European Union without the UK.

The EU institutions are now negotiating the proposal for the 2021-2027 budget and sectoral funding programmes. A compromise is sought before the end of this year.

EU funding for Digital technologies. What is there for your company?

European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) remain the main EU instrument of investment in innovation and digitalization sectors. Under the current 2014-2020 ESIF budget, roughly €21.4 billion has been allocated to finance the digital sector. The volume is expected to grow with the new 2021-2027 funding round.

In the EC proposal, digital economy is one of the top priorities to receive European Structural and Investment Funds post-2020. Investments will be channeled across multiple sectors like:

• Public services: e-government, cybersecurity, governmental cloud, bigdata.
• Healthcare: digital transformation of healthcare, telemedicine, patients' records, disease registries, e-prescription, e-health, e-Care, IoT for physical activity and ambient assisted living
• Energy: smart grids and meters, energy infrastructure digitalization, networks' security, smart public lighting/ LED
• Urban mobility & transport: smart cities, digitalization of roads and rails, electric vehicles and charging infrastructures
• Digital infrastructures and connectivity: broadband backbone/backhaul networks, wifi, 5G, large-scale computer resources/equipment, data centres, sensors
• Education: IT services and applications for #digital skills and digital inclusion
• SMEs: e-Commerce, e-Business and networked business processes, digital #innovation hubs, living labs, web entrepreneurs and ICT start-ups, B2B

Countries like Poland, Italy, Spain, Romania, the Czech Republic or Greece would most probably continue to be top receivers of EU structural funds to reduce the digital investment gap.

In addition to ESI funding, the EU will increase its support for digital transformation in the coming years through #Horizon Europe, Connecting Europe Facility (#CEF2) and the newly created #DigitalEurope programme 2021-2027. With a proposed allocation of €9.2 billion, Digital Europe is the first ever funding programme dedicated solely to supporting digital transformation in the EU.

Engage and to co-create the best EU investment environment for your business in your key EU markets

In parallel to the approval of the EU budget by the European institutions, the EU Member States are starting to prepare their specific investment plans for EU structural funds including those for the digital sector.

Who will benefit from the money? Under which conditions? What is the timeline? These are just a few of the open topics that are now being discussed by the national authorities in charge of EU money management. The consultation process is open to all interested stakeholders at country level and will last until the end of 2020.

Get in touch

At Schuman Associates, we have developed extensive experience in supporting clients to understand and influence the policy and funding framework driving previous EU cycles (2000-2006, 2007-2013, 2014-2020). Through this guidance, our clients were able to leverage downstream market opportunities in their countries of interest and win EU funded business.

Our experts in Brussels and in the local offices across Europe are ready to support your company with the new wave of EU funding 2021-2027 in your target EU markets. 

Photo: EC database