European Regional Development Fund
Overview
The European Regional Development Fund provides support to encourage research, development and innovation, create and grow SMEs, develop a low carbon economy and reduce the environmental risk to businesses. Investments to date have been made to accelerate the creation of a Thames Valley Science Park (£5m) and extend the life of the Berkshire Business Growth Hub, to February 2021 (£750,000).
Read the June Practitioner Network Bulletin here.
Open Calls
Enhancing the Competitiveness of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises
Our £1million ERDF Call has been published, please click here for details. We are encouraging applications for an ERDF Call designed to complement the Berkshire Business Growth Hub by:
- improving access to finance for SMEs
- addressing gaps in the current business support provision across Thames Valley Berkshire
- supporting high growth SMEs to ‘scale up’
Please click here for further details and supporting documentation for the Call. The outline application deadline is 23 November 2018.
Following our webinar, please find below additional support information:
- Webinar recording
- Webinar presentation
- Partner finder*
- Information pack
- Details on the application process
- Guidance information
- Sources of match funding (within eligibility section)
- Business in Berkshire 2017
Further, to support applicants with any technical questions, we have set up some 121 surgery sessions. These will take place on Wednesday 31st October and 1st November (11am to 2pm). To book your one hour slot please click here.
*If organisations are interested in partnership working and would like to be connected to other partners/lead bidders, please complete the partner finder form and return it to Joanna Birrell by Friday 19 October 2018. The LEP will circulate the form to interested organisations on Monday 22 October 2018.
The ERDF Managing Authority does not intend to allocate less than £500k of ERDF to any single project. Projects with a total value of less than £1,000,000 will not normally be supported under this Call.
A questions and answers document can be accessed here (and include a link) Further questions can be submitted up until Monday 12 November and we will update the Q&A document as appropriate.
SME support - International Trade: call in England
Thames Valley Berkshire LEP is part of a wider International Call, which is looking to enhance the competitiveness of small and medium sized enterprises, and specifically supporting the capacity of small and medium sized enterprises to grow in regional, national and international markets and to engage in innovation processes. If you are interested please click here for more details.