The European Investment Bank (EIB) is as of now on included in EDA’s 'Identifunding' online tool accessible via its European Funding Gateway for Defence. The tool, launched in March 2019, allows defence-interested stakeholders to identify on a personalised and tailored basis the precise EU funding schemes available for their specific defence-relevant projects.
The funding opportunities that are scanned through IdentiFunding include grants, loans and equity, including under the Preparatory Action on Defence Research (PADR), the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP), the EU Structural Funds, COSME, LIFE and Erasmus+.
The EIB has now agreed to add its project loans to the spectrum of more than 20 funding sources at European level that are scanned instantly by the ‘IdentiFunding’ tool based on a confidential and swift 10-minutes/10-answers process.
The above-mentioned EIB financing intervenes when the requested volume is higher than €7.5 million. These loans can cover up to 50% of the total cost for both public and private bodies for projects in line with EIB’s lending criteria and priorities.
EDA and the EIB signed a cooperation agreement in February 2018 to support investments in defence research and development activities, with a view to strengthen the EIB’s support for RDI for dual-use technologies, cybersecurity and civilian security infrastructure.
The main aim of the IdentiFunding tool is to save budget, time and human resources usually required for defence stakeholders in order to identify whether their project and entities qualify for potential EU support. It is available to industry, Ministries of Defence (MoDs), Research-and-Technology-Organisations (RTOs) and academia.
More than 180 defence-interested entities from 26 EU Member States are already registered as ‘IdentiFunding’ users, e.g. MoDs, Armed Forces, National Defence Industry Associations (NDIAs), defence-related clusters, primes/large companies, mid-caps, Small-and-Medium-sized-Enterprises (SMEs), RTOs and universities.
EDA’s ‘IdentiFunding’ will be constantly updated to also include new funding opportunities arising under the EU’s upcoming Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027, such as the European Defence Fund and the InvestEU Programme.
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