SMEs internationalization in

Regional Operational Programme

2014 - 2020
REGIONAL OPERATIONAL PROGRAMME 2014-2020 (1)

• It is based on common development priorities proposed in the Regional

Development Plans for 2014-2020, designed by each of the eight Regional
Development Agencies, synthesized in the National Strategy for Regional
Development 2014-2020

• It addresses all the five challenges for growth identified within the
Partnership Agreement:
 competitiveness and local development,
 population and social aspects,
 infrastructure,
 resources
 administration and governance.

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REGIONAL OPERATIONAL PROGRAMME 2014-2020 (2)
• It is linked to other sectoral / national strategies in its areas of
intervention and operational programmes already in place in Romania for
the 2014-2020 programming period:
– Competitiveness Operational Programme,
– Human Capital Operational Programme,
– National Programme for Rural Development.

Main changes/news compared to the previous programming period:

• Double number of priority axis (12, compared to 6),
• 70% higher financial allocation - 8,25 bln euro, (3,54 bln euro more),
• New types of investments,
• Clear defined and monitored targets and indicators
• Use of financial instruments
• Performance reserve – 6%, to be used after 2018
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 REGIONAL OPERATIONAL PROGRAMME 2014-2020 (3)
Development needs / new types of investments
• R & D &I: limited transfer of research results into the market and low assimilation of innovation in SMEs
• Business incubators
• SME - the sector is underdeveloped and has a negative impact on the competitiveness of regional economies:
 low level of entrepreneurial culture - reflected by relatively low density of business across all regions
 low resilience of new businesses – 2/3 of new businesses go out of business in the first year of life.
• Energy efficiency: sustainable energy consumption and high savings potential (public and residential buildings).
• Environment: high level of pollution in urban areas.
• Urban mobility
• Urban development: deprived urban areas, unused or not used properly in the cities of Romania.
• Heritage resources: poor capitalization of valuable cultural heritage resources.
• Tourism: valuable potential with balanced territorial distribution – option to revitalize the less developed areas
• Road infrastructure: the low degree of accessibility of some areas results in low attractivity/ level of
investments.
• Social infrastructure and education: educational, health and social services undersized impede social inclusion
and human capital development
• Community Led Local development (CLLD)
• Cadaster: low cadastral records, affecting the implementation of development policies of local communities.
• Administrative capacity: the need to strengthen the administrative capacity of the MA, IB and beneficiaries ROP
• Integrated Territorial Investments (ITI)

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REGIONAL OPERATIONAL PROGRAMME 2014-2020 (4)

GENERAL OBJECTIVE

• Increase the economic competitiveness and improve living conditions of

local and regional communities by supporting business development,
infrastructure and services for sustainable development of regions, so as
to be able to effectively manage resources and their potential for
innovation and assimilation of technological progress.

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 Total Budget
Priority Axis (PA) Activities Beneficiary
(Mil. Euro)

PA 1 - Technological transfer creation, modernization, development, endowment of TTI entities 206,51 SMEs, LPA, NGO

construction / modernization and development of the production / services for SMEs, including endowment with
PA 2 – SMEs competitiveness tangible and intangible assets; 758,45 SMEs

energy efficiency of public and residential buildings, including investments in public lighting 1187,28
PA 3 – Supporting the transition to
LPA, CPA
a low carbon economy
urban transport (runways / cyclists paths/ purchase environmentally friendly transport means / electrical, etc.) 1187,28

urban transport (runways / cyclists paths/ purchase environmentally friendly transport means / electrical, etc.) 1126,41

buildings relating to education, culture and recreation; Small green areas, public squares, squares, small
park, etc. urban streets and small scale basic utilities. 125,15 LPA, (county
PA 4 – Urban Development capitals)
Revitalization of urban areas (reconversion and re-functionalization of abandoned sites etc.) 58,82

Educational infrastructure (nurseries, kindergartens, technological high schools, vocational and technical schools). 76,47

restoration, protection and conservation of cultural heritage 326,97

PA 5 – Urban regeneration and
cultural heritage
Regeneration and revitalization of urban areas (upgrading public spaces, abandoned land rehabilitation, etc). 139,53 LPA, NGO, religious
entities

modernization / rehabilitation of county roads that provide connectivity, directly or indirectly to TEN T network
PA 6 – Road infrastructure 1068,36 LPA

PA 7 – Sustainable valorization of Development of spa tourism infrastructure

118,89 LPA
tourism potential

Rehabilitation / modernization/ construction of health infrastructure

PA 8 – Health and social 638,30
infrastructure LPA, certified social
Rehabilitation / modernization of social infrastructure 125,15 services providers

PA 9 – Marginalized communities Integrated actions: investments in health infrastructure, education, social services, social housing, social economy LPA, SMEs, NGO,
101,41
(CLLD) activities, rehabilitation of degraded urban environment religious entities, etc

PA 10 – Education Infrastructure Rehabilitation / modernization/ construction of education infrastructure 352,19 LPA, Universities

National Agency for

Data integration and extending the existing systematic registration in rural areas; Improved cadastral registration
PA 11 – Cadaster 312,89 Cadaster and Land
services;
Registration

PA 12 – Technical assistance Support to MA and intermediate bodies (RDAs) 221,28 6

MA ROP, IB ROP

Total ROP 8.131,37

REGIONAL OPERATIONAL PROGRAMME 2014-2020 (4)

Internationalization
AP 1 - Promotion of the technological
transfer

AP 2 - Increasing the competitiveness of

SMEs

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PA 1 – Promotion of the technological transfer (1)
 In order to become/remain competitive on the market, companies have to
integrate new knowledge in their commercial vision for future products

 Strategic need - Limited transfer of research results in the market and low uptake
of innovation in companies
 Support for R &D is extremely low (0.42 % of GDP in 2012) compared with the
targets for 2020 (3 % for the EU and 2 % for Romania), largely inefficient, with a
fragmented R&I system,
 A lack of critical mass of quality research results that do not result in applied
research and innovative applications.
 Large number of research activities, but weak links between education, research
and business, which leads to low transfer of new ideas to the market.
 At EU level (the 2014 “Innovation Union Scoreboard” report), Romania is listed as
modest innovators, being the second lowest in terms of technology transfer and
marketing innovation and with the lowest percentage of companies which have
innovated and marketed in the EU
 PA 1 – Promotion of the technological transfer (2)

 The main problem - the ability to absorb innovation in companies

 The main features of the process of innovation and technology transfer:
 Low cooperation between SMEs and institutions of R&D
 Small number of innovative SMEs participating in knowledge transfer activities
 SMEs are more interested in developing capacities, distribution and assembly than of research and
innovation activities
 Low rate of technology transfer and weak entrepreneurial culture.
 Innovation and technology transfer infrastructures (Technological Transfer
Organization - TTO) act as intermediaries between the demand for and supply of
innovation on the market.
 Poor performance of TTO

Therefore: creating/developing TTOs will improve the absorption capacity of

innovation at the SMEs level, by promoting the implementation of research findings
through technology transfer in SMEs.
 PA 1 – Promotion of the technological transfer (3)
 Smart specialization strategy: an ex-ante conditionality for Romania in order to
access the ESIF - fulfilled by National Strategy for Research and Development:
 limited in its weak territorial focus,
 does not reflect and establish areas of competitive advantage in the regions
 Bio economy, ICT, environment, advanced materials, health
 At regional level - not all the regions have elaborated a RIS 3 (only 6 out of 8)
 RDAs - to develop Regional Concept Notes (CN) based on a common methodology
elaborated by the MA ROP (in order to create sub-national capacities)
 each CN should, based on following an Entrepreneurial Discovery Process:
 Re/state the smart specialization directions identified at regional level
 set the smart specialization directions in those regions without a strategy
 CN - to give recommendations on the location, economic sectors and activities
that could benefit from ERDF support
 In order to be eligible under Priority Axes 1 from ROP, CN were completed by the
end of March 2017
PA 1 – Promotion of the technological transfer (4)
Lagging Behind Regions Initiative - Romania and Poland as pilots

 North-West and North-East selected as pilot regions

 Entrepreneurial discovery - smart and competitive sectors
 Education, training, skills - links to business and labour market
 Administrative capacity and national - regional coordination

 Tools and support:

 Joint Research Centre: assistance to smart specialization
 DG REGIO: external experts business support, tech transfer, cooperation
universities – businesses, etc.
 Regional governance: innovation, competitiveness, skills, catalyzers
 Governmental support: coordination, follow up
 No additional funds - ESI funds under operational programmes (ROP,COP)

 Replicate the support into the other regions

 PA 1 – Promotion of the technological transfer (5)

 TO 1 - Strengthening research, technological development and innovation

 TO 1 activities financed under PA 1/ROP - Promoting technological transfer
 ROP will focus on innovation needs identified by the demand side, in a market driven
approach;
 Complementarily, the OP Competitiveness – is also financing TO1 activities, from the
supply perspective, focusing on research based activities.
 SO - Increasing innovation in businesses by supporting innovation and technology
transfer entities in areas of smart specialization
 ROP will finance:
 TTOs (creation and development, including both infrastructure and endowment, but also
specific services),
 Science and technological parks (creation and development, including both infrastructure and
endowment, but also specific services) and
 SMEs in partnership/collaboration with TTOs.
 PA 1 – Promotion of the technological transfer (6)

 Allocated amount– 206,51 mil euro (ERDF and national contribution)

Innovative SMEs collaborating with others
 Types of activities
 Creation and development of the innovation and technological transfer
infrastructure (TTO), including scientific and technological parks; construction,
modernization, extension and endowments – equipment and software
 Purchasing the specific technological transfer services
 Investments for SMEs to implement a research & innovation result – in
partnership with a TTO
 These entities are intended to be the bridge between research and business, to
develop capacity for the swift economic exploitation of new ideas deriving from
research and innovation, commercialisation of research results and their
translation into products, processes and services from firms.
 PA 2 - Increasing the competitiveness of SMEs (1)
 Romania has serious divergences in competitiveness compared to EU
 SME sector - the backbone of the economy (99.64 % of enterprises)
 SME sector - underdeveloped, with a negative impact on the competitiveness

 The critical mass of SMEs is influenced by:

 Low entrepreneurial business culture - low density (less than 50 % of the EU average)
 Low resilience on market (2/3 of the new SMEs disappear in the first year of life)
 Resisting SMEs – in the same category, not keen on in addressing national/international market

 SMEs concentrated in low value-added areas, specialisation in labour-intensive industries work:

 Limited access to resources (land, labour, capital) to financing,
 Inefficiency of the production process, not effective links to their own markets
 Low number of innovative SMEs - compared to EU average

 Decreasing of exporting SMEs number, sectors, destinations.

 PA 2 - Increasing the competitiveness of SMEs (2)

 National Strategy for Competitiveness (NSC) identified 10 sectors that showed

recent growth and export performance

 According to the PA, the investments dedicated to FESI for sustainable growth
and national competitiveness will focus on the NSC sectors

 For regional level, investments can be financed also in the sectors identified in the
Regional Development Plans

 TO 3 – enhancing the competitiveness of SMEs

 Total allocation – 758 mil euro (ERDF and national contribution) - grants and
financial instruments
 PA 2 - Increasing the competitiveness of SMEs (3)

Investment Priority 3 a – promoting entrepreneurship by facilitating the economic

exploitation of new ideas and fostering the creation of new firms (including business
incubators)

SO 1 - Strengthen the market position of SMEs (grants)

 Micro-enterprises (de minimis, 25.000 - 200.000 euro, 234 mil euro)

 Survival rate of microenterprises (the first 3 years)

 Business incubators (de minimis for services/GBER for investments, 116 mil.
euro)
 PA 2 - Increasing the competitiveness of SMEs (4)
 Investment priority 3c — supporting the creation and the extension of advanced
capacities for product and service development

 SO2 - Improve economic competitiveness in SMEs by increasing labour

productivity

 Grants and financial instruments identified by he ex-ante evaluation (art. 37 -

1303/2013)

 SMES ( grant, GBER 200.000 – 1 mil euro, 172 mil euro)

 Labour productivity in SMEs

 Equity Fund (58 mil euro) – Funding Agreement signed with EIF

 Portfolio Risk Sharing Loan (117 mil euro) – to be negotiated

 PA 2 - Increasing the competitiveness of SMEs (5)
 Types of activities
 Construction / modernization and SMEs production / services spaces, including
endowment with tangible and intangible assets;
 Creation / modernization/ development of the business incubators/
accelerators, including development of related services (2.1);
 implementation of the certification of products, services and processes (2.2);
 promoting products and services, creation of sites for work, promoted product
or service presentation
 Specific activities for internalization process (2.2)

 Potential beneficiaries
 SMEs - acting within the competitive fields identified within the National
Strategy for Competitiveness and RDPs.
 PA 2 - Increasing the competitiveness of SMEs (6)
Specific activities for internalization process

 6 out of 100 points in the technical – financial evaluation grid

 Eligible expenses for internationalization activities - includes expenses for
participation, at international level (outside Romania), at fairs, exhibitions, as
exhibitors:
 participation fee
 stand renting fee
 transport and accommodation during the event for up to 2 delegates
 transportation and storage of samples and promotional materials
Ministry of Regional Development, Public Administration and European Funds
The Managing Authority for the ROP
Tel: 0372 11 1661, Fax: 0372 111 630
email: info@mdrap.ro