The European Commission has set aside financial instruments promoting cohesion among the European states and regions and also for supporting the implementation of common European policies. Applying for funds is difficult and the competition is very strong.

Beginning in 2007 the European Commission will drastically change the funding schemes available for environmental and energy projects. These changes concern the introduction of completely new programmes and significant increase in the budget of the existing ones.

The funding opportunities of EU can be divided into three parts:

• The sources of the pre-accession funds, structural funds and cohesion fund
• The sources of the Community programmes
• The tenders

The training programme and consulting service is designed to introduce all strategic aspects of developing project proposals eligible to be financed by EU funding by discussing the advantages and disadvantages of participation in EU financed programmes from the viewpoints of different types of organizations and to assist organizations who are preparing or who want to prepare projects to participate in these EU financed programmes.

The programme and consulting service are strongly recommended for those who wish to submit EU proposals and plan to take an active part in the development of future projects in Europe.

The target group slightly varies according to the type of needs, but in principle the programme and consulting service is foreseen for those of companies, institutions, universities from EU Associated Countries and South East Europe countries who have either participated in EU Community Programmes before or intend to submit an EU funded project proposal.

The following target groups could be reached by providing the service module:

• SMEs from any industry that would like to know their funding opportunities
• Managers and leaders of Sees that would gain useful hints and tips from experienced EU project managers
• Business consultants experienced in project management that would act on the new market
• Government and municipality representatives
• Project developers

The interested individuals and companies will receive straightforward advice on how get started, where to look for information sources, and how to maximize the direct and indirect benefits of EU programmes by:

• Personal consulting with professional experts and EC project developers
• Establishment of international partnerships for future business cooperation
• Practical advice for proposal development and preparation, including:
• formal and technical requirements,
• administrative and financial conditions,
• contract negotiations,
• the evaluation of proposals and
• the implementation of projects

Corporate sector clients will receive useful hints about using projects for gaining acess to the European market. Clients coming from the non-profit and governmental sectors will have a clear view about the possibilities for taking part in projects at the European level.

The training programme and consulting service are practical and concise and avoid theoretical lecture type teaching, focusing mainly on the practical side of several EU programmes through real life examples and case studies.

EU funding system seeks to make the most of this potential by proposing measures to increase their participation and to develop possibilities for their increased access to research and project results.

Projects financed by EU funding programmes will aim to help enterprises innovate by providing access to finance, and give Sees simple, clear and eficient access to the EU – its legislation, programmes and opportunities via business support network.

It will also stimulate the new converging markets for electronic network, media content and digital technologies, support the modernization of public sector services that will raise productivity and improve services

Following the principle of subsidiarity, projects have to be transnational. Only consortia partners from different countries can apply, activities that can be carried out at national or regional level which will promote co-operation across borders.

Based on the Treaty establishing European Union, EU funding programmes have to serve two main strategic objectives: strengthening the scientific, technological and social bases of industry and encourage its international competitiveness while promoting and fostering research activities and networking in support of other EU policies. These two objectives are setting the general scene for chosing priorities and instruments.

Companies from EU Memeber states and Associated Candidate Countries are eligible to apply for funding, participate in EU projects and tenders in a variety of fields. The number of open programmes is significant. In order to assist companies with preparation to participate in these EU programmes, the training programme and consulting service was developed to cover following topics.

• History of the European common policies
• Short introduction to the funding system of European Union
• Detailed introduction to institutional supports and Community
  Programmes
• Pre-accesion instruments
• Structural and Cohesion Funds
• Community Programmes
• Community Initiatives
• Information sources, how to find relevant document on the net, NCP (Network of Certified Professionals)

At the end of the company screening  clients will have

• a clear project idea (Own and EU scopes, duration, budget, tasks, costs)
• a preliminary workplan and work-flow (WP descriptions),
• a complementary consortium where the tasks are well divided,
• an idea what will be the project results (Deliverables),
• a list of the resources needed (person month, costs, durables, etc.)
• a preliminary budget.

• Finding the relevant call for proposal
• Preparation of proposal
• Partner search, building the consortium
• Filling out administrative forms in practice
• Filling out technical forms in practice
• Work packages, Deliverables list
• Budget, cost models and categories, cost-benefit analysis, reporting
• Financial and administrative condition of EC project proposals

• How to submit R&D proposals, environmental and training proposal
• From the submissions of proposals till signing the contract
• Evaluation of proposals, evaluation procedure
• Main aspects and criteria for evaluation
• Negotiation procedure, signing the contract with the Commission

Development aid is frequently provided through projects. International institutions, such as the United Nations or the World Bank, or other donors (e.g., Governments of the industrialized countries) tie their loans or grants to projects or conditions. The decision whether or not to finance a project is most probably based on a project proposal submitted by the client (e.g., the recipient government). However, before a project proposal is written and ready for submission to the management board of, say, the World Bank, months of preparation preceded that moment.

Problems and needs of a country have to be analyzed, interests of stakeholders evaluated and ideas for projects identified and screened for further study. A pre-feasibility project study may precede project identification; a sector review may provide the necessary background to identify projects and set priorities.  

Project Cycle Management starts with the first steps in project design. We will concentrate on the problem and objective analysis and will then define a strategy how the objectives can be achieved. The tool used frequently in this type of work is the logical framework. We will start building up the LogFrame either for your own project or for a sample project.

The primary aim of this actiivity is to provide practical assistance to the companies, institutions, municipalities and professionals all necessary information and wide-range expertise in order to successfully implement EU aproved projects and achieving targeted goals.