More than €80 billion – this is the amount of money allocated to Poland within the new EU financial framework 2014-2020. How to use these funds by entrepreneurs – the interested parties could find out at the conference “Subsidies for enterprises – 2014-2020. Technologies – Innovations – Investments.” The meeting was organized by the company managing the Wałbrzych Special Economic Zone “INVEST-PARK” in cooperation with the Świdnica-based Center for Energy Technologies.
“The new tranche of EU subsidies presents an opportunity for small and medium-sized enterprises. This, in turn, will constitute the basis for sustainable development, in which smaller entities will not be doomed to failure when competing with the giants. Acquiring the money is a difficult process, but I do hope that our meeting will answer the question of where to look for this money and how to apply for it,” said “INVEST-PARK” President Barbara Kaśnikowska.“It is a good time to begin the application process because later the queue will only get longer. In the newest tranche, there will be two leading programs: the regional ones and Infrastructure and Environment, with budgets twice higher than in the years 2007-2013. The Infrastructure and Environment Program is the right place for small and medium-sized enterprises,” said Krzysztof Brzozowski, President of the Center for Energy Technologies from Świdnica.
According to Mr. Brzozowski, it is innovative projects that will be most important in the new framework, as evidenced by the possibility of receiving a 100% subsidy in case of research and development programs. During the conference, the entrepreneurs could also listen to Robert Hadaś, Deputy Director of the Lower Silesian Intermediary Institution, which is in charge of collecting and evaluating subsidy applications. The region of Lower Silesia will have 2.2 billion zlotys at its disposal.
“The largest group of beneficiaries will be small and medium-sized companies. Those able to present the best innovative projects will be most advantaged in this new financial framework. We plan that the document titled ‘Detailed description of priority axes’ will be ready at the turn of May,” said Mr. Hadaś.
The invited guests also talked about good practices and positive examples of using EU funds. The first speaker who described her experiences was Anna Pilska of SONEL, a listed company functioning in the Świdnica Subzone of the Wałbrzych Special Economic Zone.
“In the last ten years, we have managed to acquire 15 million zlotys to finance 26 projects, some of which were R&D projects. We initially employed ten people, and now we have grown to almost 230, 50 of whom are our R&D personnel,” Anna Pilska said.
The next speaker was Maciej Sokolik, proxy of the Żarów-based company Thermaflex, who also shared his experiences in this area. Finally, Krzysztof Brzozowski summarized his presentation by saying that it is necessary to use imagination when designing the programs for one’s own company. He showed some examples of projects that can be financially supported: from the initial conception to taking on new employees, the research phase, commercial implementation and launching the product.
