Brand new financial mechanism now available as part of Norway Grants

On Tuesday. 24th January 2018, a new financial mechanism was made available as part of Norway Grants concerning transnational and transborder regional cooperation – EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Regional Cooperation.

The main aims of the programme coincide with those of Norway Grants – to close the socio-economic gap between countries in the European Economic Area and promote a closer relationship between donor countries (Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein) and their beneficiaries (15 Northern, Central and Southern European countries, including Poland).

Recognising that transnational and transborder regional cooperation is the key to many of our shared challenges, FMO – Financial Mechanism Office is now open to initial project proposals. These can be put forward by entities from beneficiary countries by 01st July 2018 deadline.

The entities eligible for support and funding include:

City authorities, including partnerships and entities partially governed by the city

Regional authorities, including partnerships and entities partially governed by the region authorities

Central government units, including public enterprises and academic institutions

Civil society organisations, such as non-profit organisations, social enterprises and others

Each project proposal should consider the Norway Funds priority framework, divided into five distinct areas:

Innovation, research, education and competitiveness

Social inclusion, youth employment and reducing poverty

Environment, energy, climate change and low-emission economy

Culture and civil society, including good governance, basic rights and freedoms

Justice and internal affairs

Each project should engage partners from at least three countries, including two from the beneficiary country list (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia).

The partnership, or consortium, should be made up of:

A project leader, coming from one of the beneficiary countries above

At least two partner project beneficiaries, one of which comes from a country that is different to that of the project leader (again please refer to the list above). The second partner can come from one of the listed 15 countries, but also from: Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, FYR Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Russia, Serbia, Turkey or the Ukraine.

In line with the programme’s goal to foster a closer relationship with donor countries, proposals are encouraged to include an entity from either Norway, Iceland or Lichtenstein in an advisory, expert role. The expert partner can also come from any EU country, other than that of the partner project beneficiaries or be an entity with an international organisation status.

Available funds come to a total of 31 89 million EUR, to be awarded until 2021.

The above call for project proposals concerns 15 million EUR in funds.

The amount stipulated in the project proposal should not be less than 1 million EUR.

Please note that decisions to review, and fund, applications are taken directly by FMO – Financial Mechanism Office.

We encourage you to look closely at the criteria before applying.