This concerns the procedure for selecting operations by the managing authority (the term ‘operation’ is used in the cohesion policy context). The CPR Art. 73 states that

In conformity, the Finland national EMFAF programme established the following four strategic objectives:

1. Supporting sustainable growth in the fisheries sector

2. Safeguarding the preconditions for primary production

3. Accelerating innovations and renewal of the fisheries sector

4. Strong focus on environmental issues

Additionally, and particularly aligned with objective 3 above, the Finnish national EMFAF programme strategy states that it is their aim to increase international cooperation in research and development, and funding from the EMFAF programme may complement the objectives of HE. Also, this funding can be used as national contribution, including for international calls. It is therefore clearly stated that the Finland EMFAF programme intends to use national funds to boost this kind of joint international calls.

Moreover, in the description of types of actions concerning R&D&I, it was included that funding can be used as a national contribution to international calls, such that the Finnish EMFAF Programme can participate and contribute to joint calls with Horizon Europe.

Regarding selection criteria and methodology, the monitoring committee has adopted the national methodology for selection of operations and selection criteria, where it is stated the possibilities of using either continuous calls or fixed-term application procedures. In case of fixed-term application procedure, a project can be selected based on the selection criteria in accordance with the objectives of the call. As such, targeted calls can be launched and specific criteria can be adopted for this kind of call. Also, a specific selection criterion concerning the selection in an international call was introduced for this kind of co-funded application.

Regarding the calls for proposals, the CPR states that the managing authority must publish a website concerning the fund and, among other obligations, they must also publish a timetable of the planned calls for proposals that must be updated accordingly.

The following figure presents an example of a timeline with EMFAF as a co-financing instrument with SBEP 1^st call for proposals which follows the selection procedure as specified in the CPR. Prior to the launch of SBEP call, the local managing authorities would 1) reserve a specific budget for the concerning topics. Then, once SBEP call is launched, or even beforehand, the concerning authority would 2) publish the timetable of the planned calls for proposals in the EMFAF website. Afterwards, once the selection procedure on the SBEP side is in its late phase, with the selection of proposals, then the managing authority would 3) open a target call for proposals that were selected in the SBEP call.

EMFAF projects often involve additional public financing, a common practice seen, for instance, in Finland where national projects may receive funding from municipalities or research institutes within the same operational project. In the context of EU legislation, there are no restrictions on combining EMFAF and EU top-up funding (or other combination of EU funding streams), provided that there is no duplication of financing within a single project.

EU top-up funding cannot be managed within the Finnish EMFAF IT system. Consequently, they have opted to employ a model where the EMFAF intermediate body (ELY centres) responsible for all funding decisions within their fund, oversees the grant decision-making model regarding the EMFAF.

Under this planned model, schematized in the figure below, the EMFAF intermediate body grants the EMFAF funding rate, e.g., 70%, while e.g., the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry handles EU top-up funding and disburses it to beneficiaries (30%). Payments to beneficiaries are calculated based on total costs using a real cost model. Beneficiaries apply for funding from both the intermediate body and the ministry, and both entities verify the total cost to avoid double financing.

To enhance additional funding synergies, Finland has identified three desired outcomes to pursue: 1) communication and dissemination of results within the sector and among stakeholders, 2) transformation of research results into practice in enterprises and private sector, and 3) facilitation of public-private partnerships.

To boost innovations, Finland national EMFAF relies first on traditional methods to finance public and collective development projects, spanning from local to national projects. These funds are allocated towards research infrastructure, including the construction of new facilities, and co-funded international joint projects. Additionally, Finland has introduced innovative financing products tailored for enterprises. Among these is the ‘innovation voucher,’ offering a modest sum, such as €5.000,00, with minimal administrative burdens. Enterprises can utilize this fund with flexibility to boost novel ideas within their operations. Beyond this, a more substantial financing option exists in the form of development funding for companies, with a maximum allocation of €200.000,00. Furthermore, at the enterprise level, Finland provides opportunities for increased aid intensity for investments conducted in collaboration with research institutes, thereby fostering robust public-private partnerships at a tangible level. Lastly, they have initiated the ’Fisheries Innovation Programmes’ in previous programmes.

The underlying principle behind these innovation programmes was a shift from project-based development approaches to a target-oriented and continuous long-term development model. In a traditional development approach, calls for proposals are opened, projects are initiated as planned, but often encounter the need for further research or development, leading to a cycle of new projects. This process often causes a decline in trust and commitment among stakeholders, along with time gaps and discontinuities in development efforts. To address it, Finland transitioned towards a ‘learning networks’ model. Here, main actors from both public and private sectors collaborate to design and agree upon shared visions and goals. Through continuous collaboration, trust and commitment among these actors grow, allowing for sustained progress towards common objectives. Ideally, this cooperative approach fosters innovation and utilization of innovations collectively, surpassing the innovation levels achievable through traditional methods. After approximately five years of implementation, these innovation programmes have yielded favourable outcomes. For instance, the ’Aquaculture Innovation Programme’ successfully engaged relevant national institutes, including research institutions, universities, and aquaculture companies.

There is a commitment to continue these innovation programmes, which are built upon robust public-private partnerships, and the focus will be on digital and green transition and sustainable growth of the fisheries sector. Five innovation programmes will be launched, one of them centred on fisheries (the ‘Fisheries Environmental Programme’). These programmes will formulate and regularly update Research & Development & Innovation agendas, guiding funding and other national research activities towards jointly identified goals aligned with the overarching vision.

Primarily funded by (European) EMFAF funds, these programmes also leverage other national and international financing opportunities to achieve their objectives comprehensively. In the case of Finland, it is anticipated that these platforms will serve to enhance synergies among various funding instruments, particularly by disseminating information and catalysing additional research and innovation activities at the national level.

A total of €530 million was made available for this implementation action, corresponding to 52% of 2021-2027 ERDF Regional Programme financial allocation. It addresses advanced research and innovation policy, with a focus on local specificities, and responds to three major challenges:

• innovative and smart transition, closely related to the new S3 Strategy, which indicates the guidelines for the regional research and innovation policy;

• promoting digital transformation to improve opportunities for economic growth and social innovation, stimulating a cultural change and making digital a new territorial peculiarity;

• boosting competitiveness within the regional production system by focusing on labour, the value of enterprise and the entrepreneurial and widespread pluralism of SMEs.

The Emilia-Romagna Region is one of the 38 funding organizations of the second SBEP Joint Transnational Co-Funded Call “Unified paths to a climate-neutral, sustainable, and resilient blue economy: engaging civil society, academia, policy, and industry”, launched in February 2024. As per specified in the Call documents, the Emilia-Romagna Region underscores the inclusion of EMFAF as a co-funding stream.

To materialize this type co-funding scheme, coherence and complementarity should be ensured, specifically:

• Coordination of the strategic priorities of the different funding programmes from their conception to promote a common vision;

• Adoption of a strategic approach in the use of European funding.

Additionally, for this form of synergy,

1. the rules of the respective programme shall apply to each contribution;

2. cumulative funding must not exceed total eligible costs;

3. the support provided by the different programmes can be calculated pro-rata;

4. the conditions of support for beneficiaries are illustrated in a specific document.

As such, the project shall be consistent with the strategy, contents and specific objective of the Emilia-Romagna ERDF 2021-2027 Regional Programme, and the Emilia-Romagna Smart Specialization Strategy 2021-2027, as specified in the text of the second SBEP Joint Transnational Co-Funded Call.

In the framework of cooperation among outermost regions, as well as with third countries or neighbouring partners, calls for proposals may be launched for combined funding under the ERDF and the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI). The Commission has included a specific financial allocation of €10 million financed by the NDICI fund to the MAC programme, in order to support the African countries participating in the programme to strengthen their cooperation with the outermost regions of the Union under the MAC programme.

To this end, the NDICI instrument will contribute to actions implemented by the Managing Authority through joint ERDF/NDICI calls. Where appropriate, another modality could be used with the agreement of the European Commission and the Monitoring Committee.

The joint calls will cover the following priorities:

• Priority: 1 – Smart MAC: Improving the competitiveness of companies thorough innovative and smart economic transformation: NDICI allocation of €4 million;

• Priority: 2 – Green MAC: Ecological transition support for the development of a green and blue economy, fighting climate change, risk and disaster prevention and management: NDICI allocation of €6 million

The conditions for the implementation of this total contribution of €10 million, which will be under indirect management in accordance with Article 55(3)(b) of Regulation (EU)2021/1059, shall be determined by an agreement concluded between the Commission and the Managing Authority.

The MAC Programme envisages synergies with Horizon Europe in four key strategic orientations:

1. promoting digital and green transition,

2. circular economy,

3. sustainable management of natural resources and

4. enhancing resilience to disasters.

Projects will focus on the most promising sectors, especially the sustainable blue economy, tourism or bioeconomy. Projects having been awarded the Seal of Excellence will receive particular attention and will be taken into account for compatibility with State aid rules in the case of SME participation.

The MAC programme also complements actions co-financed by other Structural and Investment Funds. This includes ERDF itself, through ERDF Regional Operational Programmes for the Canary Islands, the Azores and Madeira.

The MAC programme is committed to boosting the economic dynamism of the area by leveraging its competitive factors. One of these is the region’s rich terrestrial and marine biodiversity, which underpins the commitment to the blue and the green economy.

Regarding the blue economy, the MAC can complement actions co-financed by the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund (EMFAF), and Horizon Europe’s Mission Restore our Ocean and Waters. Projects will encourage entrepreneurship and competitiveness in this sector from a sustainable perspective, promoting renewable and carbon-neutral technologies and developing innovative solutions.

Canary Islands

Complementarity between these different funds in the Canary Islands will be guaranteed through a Funds Coordination Commission made up of all the representatives of the Government of the Canary Islands in matters related to the European Union. This Commission will oversee the coordination of aid and grants financed totally or partially from Community funds and will serve as an exchange of good practices between the different ESI funds (ERDF, ESF, EAFRD and EMFAF).

The MAC complements the ERDF Operational Programme of the Canary Islands through the Smart MAC and Green MAC Priorities, although the MAC component focuses on the development and transfer of knowledge to third partner countries, seeking business opportunities and increasing economic and trade relations between Europe and Africa, fostering the economic and social development across the cooperation area.

Concerning ESF+ Operational Programme, the roles of Smart MAC and Green MAC Priorities emphasize aspects geared towards job creation through the revitalisation of the productive fabric: the Smart MAC Priority focuses on applied research and support for SMEs; the Green MAC Priority focuses on promoting the green and blue economy, as well as the circular economy, through actions that encourage the creation of companies in these sectors. In addition, the Governance MAC Priority includes the capitalisation of the results obtained in previous programmes, with a view to encouraging the reuse and exploitation of accumulated knowledge and its practical application.

Madeira and Azores

The Autonomous Region of Madeira (ARM), in preparing and managing the two ERDF-supported programmes (MAC and the ERDF Regional Programme for Madeira), will seek better alignment, particularly regarding eligible areas, ensuring non-duplication of actions, complementarity and synergies, nature safeguarding, and the specificities, characteristics, fields of action and types of actions of the investments to be supported.

The Autonomous Region of the Azores (ARA), in the negotiation and preparation phase of the ERDF Azores 2030 programme, has sought to enhance synergies with the INTERREG VI-D MAC programme, especially for the Smart and Green Priorities.

The regional governments of the ARM and the ARA, as Managing Authorities in their ERDF regional operational programmes, and as regional representatives in the Management and Monitoring Committees and Regional Auditors in the INTERREG MAC 2021-2027 programme, will ensure, within their competences, the non-duplication of interventions and support, and the complementarity and synergies between programmes, taking into account the characteristics and specificities of each project, their nature, areas of intervention and type of actions.

In the Azores, the Regional Directorate for Science, Innovation and Development (Direção Regional da Ciência, Inovação e Desenvolvimento – DRCTD, formerly the Regional Directorate for Science and Technology – DRCT) may complement the 85% co-financing provided by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under MAC by granting 15% co-funding. This support is available to eligible local entities that are part of the Azores Scientific and Technological System (Sistema Científico e Tecnológico dos Açores – SCTA), and the co-funding amount per project is calculated based on the total co-financeable contribution of the participating regional entities (i.e., only the portion of the project executed by eligible regional entities can be covered).

Entities seeking the 15% co-funding from DRCTD must submit their request in parallel with the submission of project proposals under the MAC Programme. Eligible projects must fall under one of the programme’s investment priorities, namely Smart MAC and Green MAC. Submitted projects are evaluated against the thematic areas defined in the Azores RIS3 2022–2027. DRCTD carries out a simplified assessment to determine whether the project aligns with at least one priority area and one transversal area of Azores RIS3. Only projects deemed aligned will receive a declaration of support, which is required for submission under the MAC 2021–2027 call.

The Center Regional Coordination and Development Commission (Comissão de Coordenação e Desenvolvimento Regional do Centro, CCDRC) is participating in several European Partnerships using European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) resources, allocated from the Regional Programme Centro 2030. This includes mobilizing ERDF to co-fund R&I calls from European Partnerships, including SBEP’s Joint Transnational Calls (JTC). Initial implementation of this funding scheme presented challenges, and operational issues have also arisen subsequently. Nevertheless, the instrument has been successfully applied, although within a limited timeframe. This funding scheme is operationalized through the following actions:

1. The process starts at the strategic level, including defining which partnerships to join and ensuring strategic alignment (S3). Since some Partnerships were approved late within the 2021–2027 ERDF programming period, a timing issue arises

2. Once strategic decisions are made, the next step is to identify priority areas for support under each JTC and define budget allocations, with the need to take into consideration that the regional programme has its own priorities and calls to manage, and the relevance of interregional collaboration in strategic areas;

3. The JTC is launched. The proposal selection process includes eligibility checks by each funding organisation and a Partnership-level evaluation of proposals;

4. After funding decisions are made at the Partnership level, a regional ERDF call is opened by CCDRC. The selection process includes a second, formal eligibility check. Potential issues include time lags of several months between the two calls (i.e., the JTC and the regional call), possible changes in eligibility conditions between the first and second checks, and delays in the project execution.

ERDF has also been used to generate synergies with other instruments managed at European level. A notable example is the Seal of Excellence, which provides a streamlined mechanism for support. Furthermore, results can be leveraged with complementary funding, for example to support increasing the TRL of projects previously funded by H2020 or HE (downstream synergy). This is achieved through articulation with national funds — CCDR Centro has a MoU with the national agency (FCT), which funds European Partnerships — and through the design of national and regional calls that promote synergies at different levels, going beyond the Seal of Excellence.

This action is a EU Synergy grant, as the funding for projects under this topic is provided by more than one source. Specifically, the project must have a source of funding complementary to the Horizon Europe funding (e.g., national and/or regional funding, European funding, such as from Cohesion policy programmes, or private sources). Its total amount must at least equal the total requested Horizon Europe contribution.

The project proposals undergo a joint evaluation of both project parts funded under Horizon Europe and under any chosen complementary source of funding, such as from Cohesion Policy programmes. The operations supported by a complementary source of funding must comply with the scope of the supporting programme, and they must provide an effective contribution to the achievement of programme’s specific objectives. In addition, when Cohesion policy funding is mobilised, it must be consistent with the relevant Smart Specialisation Strategy (S3). Seals of Excellence are awarded to applications exceeding all of the evaluation thresholds set out in the work programme, but cannot be funded due to lack of budget available to the call.

Synergies between Horizon Europe and the cohesion policy programmes, mainly ERDF, including INTERREG, but also the Resilience and Recovery Fund (RRF), are instrumental for widening countries to catch up in their R&I performance and to reduce the innovation divide in Europe. Although such synergies are already addressed in the Teaming and Excellence Hubs actions these instruments do not capture the full range of possible synergies and need to be complemented by a dedicated scheme.

This pilot call offers opportunities to incentivise the concrete realisation of particularly promising sequential synergies in two different pathways either supporting the upstream synergy mode (a) or downstream synergy mode (b) where the former is focusing on human resources development and internationalisation and the latter on valorisation and upscaling of research results towards marketable solutions.

The purpose of this action is to provide support for additional efforts required for setting up the interfaces between two different funding systems where major barriers still occur due to the mismatches of regional versus European approach, consortium vs single beneficiary funding and Horizon thematic priorities vs national/regional smart specialisation. Consortia should decide at proposal level which of the two aforementioned pathways is applicable for their needs. This will also influence the composition of the applicant consortium and the choice of funded activities.

Excellence Hubs are part of the European Excellence InitiativeExternal link: https://rea.ec.europa.eu/funding-and-grants/horizon-europe-widening-participation-and-spreading-excellence/european-excellence-initiative_en and complement the science-oriented schemes Teaming, Twinning, ERA Chairs and the European Excellence Initiative for universities by a dedicated innovation component. Excellence Hubs focus on innovation by allowing innovation ecosystems in Widening countries and beyond, to team up and create better linkages between academia, business, government and society. This fosters a real place-based innovation culture in Widening countries based on a strategic agenda aligned with regional or national Smart Specialisation Strategies. In this context, synergies are sought with the programme parts on European Innovation Ecosystems, EIC pathfinder and the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) as well as the initiative ‘Partnerships for Regional Innovation’ run by the Joint Research Centre (JRC). The excellence hubs are the basis in Widening countries of the pan-European Innovation Ecosystem of the new Innovation Agenda for Europe.

Unlike Teaming projects that are centred around a single beneficiary, Excellence Hubs are networks of place-based innovation ecosystems in Widening countries involving larger communities of actors in a regional context based on the quadruple helix principle. The call allows to provide financial support to third parties in the form of grants, especially for the support of start-ups and SMEs. Also, it enables the realisation of actions (pilots and demonstrators) that must be financed by other sources, in particular programmes co-financed by the ERDF, INTERREG, IPA or similar.