Entrepreneurs, are you ready? New EU calls for grants opening soon!

After a period in which not many EU calls for entrepreneurs were announced, several EU calls are planned to be published by the end of this year, aimed at stimulating various entrepreneurial projects with an emphasis on innovative projects and projects aimed at internationalization and digitalization of business.

Currently, at least 3 calls for grants for innovative entrepreneurial projects at different levels of technological readiness (TRLs) have been announced, as well as several calls for business digitalization and co-financing participation in domestic and foreign fairs. These include the calls “Proving Innovative Concept – Third Call” (recently opened); “Innovations of Newly Established SMEs” (companies up to 5 years old), “Targeted Scientific Research”, “Support for SMEs related to internationalization and market expansion” and “Support for the digitalization of SMEs in the process of industrial transition of Croatian regions”.

The Zagreb company Omnia Solutions d.o.o., specialized in the preparation and implementation of EU projects and finding favorable sources of financing for entrepreneurs, recently received a positive decision for its client for a project worth 1.67 million euros, which was submitted to last year’s call Targeted Scientific Research aimed at encouraging collaborative research activities between private companies and research organizations (universities, institutes, etc.).

This project was recognized as one of the 15 best in Croatia, achieving over 92% of the possible points in the call, and was approved for 1.49 million euros in grants for research in partnership between the Faculty of Science of the University of Zagreb (PMF) and a multinational pharmaceutical company.

Given the large number of applicants and strict criteria in the mentioned call, Omnia Solutions d.o.o. confirmed a high level of expertise and professionalism in preparing complex innovative EU projects and invites interested entrepreneurs to contact them via email: [email protected] or through LinkedIn profile of the company if they wish to apply for the long-awaited calls to stimulate innovative projects or for co-financing participation in fairs and/or digitalization of business.

In case you do not necessarily have an innovative project or have already developed one and wish to present it at relevant international tech fairs, an interesting call is “Support for SMEs related to internationalization and market expansion”, which includes participation in international fairs, including organizing business meetings (economic delegations, matchmaking and/or B2B events in the country and abroad) and informational events on the topic of internationalization. A similar call was active four years ago (Internationalization of SMEs – Phase 2) and over 300 projects were approved for companies from various sectors, with support amounts reaching up to 132,000 euros, with an intensity of 85% of eligible costs for micro and small enterprises.

Since then, there has been no similar call to encourage companies to participate in fairs, and a large interest from entrepreneurs for this call is again expected, within which the support intensity will be somewhat lower than four years ago (reduction from 85% to 60%), but the total allocation will be significantly higher than it was in 2020. Namely, the initial allocation in the last call was 7.7 million euros, but was subsequently increased to 17.7 million euros due to the extremely high interest from entrepreneurs.

In this year’s call, the planned allocation amounts to nearly 30 million euros, which should be sufficient for all interested parties who submit their projects on time to actually receive co-financing for participation in B2B meetings and fairs in the country and abroad.

Ultimately, it is a well-known fact that the availability and volume of available funds from EU funds will begin to decrease in the coming years, and that is precisely why now is the time to think about stronger withdrawal of EU funds, where quality and timely project preparation with professional support can enable companies from various sectors to obtain EU grants for various purposes and activities.