Call for cooperation projects between European Atlantic areas is ready to start

Interreg Atlantic Area – the programme that supports transnational cooperation projects between 24 Atlantic regions of Spain, France, Portugal, and Ireland – opens this Friday its first call following the approval, last March, of the work programme for the period 2021-2027. Interreg Atlantic Area 2022 call will be open for the next 18 weeks, from 14 October 2022 to 17 February 2023. The results of the evaluation will be communicated four to eight months after the submission of the application.

With 113 million euros from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), this programme finances cooperation projects in the Irish regions North and West, South, East and Midland; French regions of Brittany, Normandy, New Aquitaine, Pays de la Loire; Spanish regions of Galicia, Principality of Asturias, Cantabria, Navarre, Basque Country, La Rioja, Andalusia, and the Canary Islands; and the Portuguese ones of Norte, Algarve, Centro, Lisbon, Alentejo, Azores and Madeira.

Projects applying for Interreg Atlantic funding must contribute novel solutions to the challenges of the regions involved in innovation, resource efficiency, environment, and cultural assets, supporting regional development and sustainable growth. This programme is particularly suitable for testing new methods in a transnational network.

Criteria for Interreg Atlantic Area 2022 call for proposals

For the project to meet the transnational cooperation criterion, the Interreg Atlantic organisation stresses that it must not only bring together at least one partner from each of the four Member States of the cooperation area (with a maximum of 12 partners) but also work on a shared challenge and achieve innovative solutions that can be applied to all of them, including at regional or local level.

“This call is a great opportunity for the public administrations of the different countries and regions in the area to cooperate and to collaborate with other innovative agents such as technology centres, universities, associations and SMEs,” says Javier Lahuerta, head of the Regions knowledge area at Zabala Innovation. “It is expected that these organisations can contribute experience, technology and knowledge to improve governance management and promote the blue economy and innovation and sustainability in the Atlantic territory”, he adds.

Projects must prove a high intensity of transnational cooperation throughout their lifetime with a clear focus on results. Partners must work together to deliver, send and implement them through partnerships involving a wide range of actors – public, private and research actors, including social and civil society.

Programme priorities

Interreg Atlantic is articulated around four priorities, of which only the first three are covered by this call:

• Blue innovation and competitiveness (Smarter Europe): developing and enhancing research and innovation abilities and the uptake of advanced technologies; reaping the benefits of digitalisation for citizens, companies, research organisations and public authorities.
• Blue and green environment (Greener Europe): promoting energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions; promoting climate change adaptation and disaster risk prevention, resilience, taking into account eco-system-based approaches; promoting the transition to a circular and resource efficient economy; enhancing protection and preservation of nature, biodiversity and green infrastructure, including in urban areas, and reducing all forms of pollution.
• Blue sustainable tourism and culture (Social Europe): enhancing the role of culture and tourism in economic development, social inclusion, and social innovation.
• A better governance for cooperation (Interreg objective).

For this call, the total amount of the project should preferably be in the range of €1 to 3.5 million. The projects, whose indicative duration will have to be up to 36 months, will be co-financed and reimbursed up to 75%.

“At Zabala Innovation, we are experts in the Interreg Atlantic Area programme,” Lahuerta stresses. “Our consultants have been actively involved both in supporting our clients in the preparation of proposals for the programme’s calls and in assisting them in the laborious management of the approved projects,” he concludes.