European funds supporting sustainable development and ecological transition
Recipients
The course is aimed at public administration employees in the Lombardy region (course venue: Bocconi Urban Campus, Via Sarfatti 10 - Milan), Piedmont and Apulia, delivered online.
Calendar
The calendar for editions of the course will be determined at a later stage and communicated directly to the participants.
The Context
The 2021-2027 European program has reached the halfway point and we are beginning to look towards a new 2028-2035 programming cycle. In summer 2025, the European Commission presented its proposals for a multi-year financial framework and fund regulations.
In addition to the resources used in the traditional programmes, the current programme period was characterised by the extraordinary presence of NRP resources. The NRP has now entered its final phase and the experience is useful to discuss the lessons learnt. Cohesion policy has only recently started to be actually implemented. Other initiatives, such as Horizon Europe or Life+ have now entered their last programme cycle.
On the one hand, therefore, the programme still offers 'open' funding opportunities, on the other hand, many administrations are in the project management and reporting phase. It is therefore important to strengthen fund scouting, application submittal, project management and reporting skills, and to start looking beyond the current programme towards 2028.
The course aims to provide participants with the appropriate tools and skills to oversee the various stages of the project cycle, stimulating participant awareness that European funds are not only a financial source for addressing shortfalls in national resources, but also, and above all, a stimulus for innovation and learning how to use these opportunities with a view to additionality and co-financing. This is why it is important for administrations to be able to take up the challenge of European programming as a lever for development, even when they are not direct recipients of funding but act as facilitators of horizontal partnerships on the ground between small and medium-sized enterprises, social enterprises, associations and non-profit organisations.
Objectives
The programme's general training objective is to provide participants with the knowledge and key skills to support research, design and management of projects financed by European funds that are oriented towards environmental, social and economic sustainability.
The specific training objectives of the programme are:
- Identifying and building synergies between European funding sources such as the NRP, funds for Cohesion (ERDF, ESF+), for research and innovation (Horizon Europe), for culture (Creative Europe), education (Erasmus+), and for sustainability (life+)
- Acquiring a strategic approach to the funds and building the fundability matrix for projects
- Knowing how to define strategies and approaches for structuring innovative projects and successful funding applications
- Acquiring advanced knowledge and tools to define strategies for building local, national and international partnerships
- Learning the logic and methods of budgeting and reporting
- Learning the principles for effective contract and social partnership management in funded operations
