During the previous weeks, at Winnovart, we have launched a survey to understand how much companies in Beneficiary States do understand the advantages of the EEA & Norway grants.
We are pleased to publish preliminary results after 3 weeks from the survey opening.
General conclusions at this stage. Most respondents from the Beneficiary States have no direct experience with the EEA & Norway grants, although the majority are familiar or have experience with EU funding schemes on their local markets. The EEA & Norway grants seem to be a funding mechanism that all our respondents are interested in exploring. However, less than half of them have checked the funding conditions so far. The lack of trading or commercial history with organisations from the Donor States (for most respondents) might be a key barrier here, even though this funding mechanism offers the perfect context to overcome this barrier. All respondents are willing to engage with organisations from the Donor States either by establishing a partnership, testing their products/ services or transfer know-how and expertise from those markets.
General awareness regarding the EEA & Norway grants. 95% of the respondents (businesses based in the Beneficiary States) have no direct experience with the EEA & Norway grants. While 60% are not familiar at all, 20% of the respondents have become familiar with this funding mechanism recently and only 5% have had previous experience with these grants.
General understanding of the international funding landscape. The respondents are most familiar/ experiences with the EU funding schemes available on their local markets (85%). Despite having experience with EU funding schemes directly managed by the European Commission (40%), as well as with other local state-aid funding schemes (30%), the respondents are least experienced with the EEA & Norway grants.
Engagement experience with the Donor States (Norway, Iceland, LIechtenstein). Somewhat in line with the very low level of direct experience with the funding scheme, 70% of respondents have no direct trading or commercial history with organisations from the Donor States, have never had contact with these. 30%, however, have established contacts with organisations from the Donor States.
General interest to apply for grants-funding. It can be assumed that 100% of the respondents would be interested to apply for funding via the EEA & Norway grants, but only 10% have actually checked the funding conditions. 45% have specifically indicated their interest to explore the funding conditions under this funding mechanism.
Type of partnership sought with organisations from the Donor States. Most respondents (55%) are interested to visit the Donor States’ markets to establish future partnerships, while 50% would aim to test their products and services in Norway and/ or Iceland. 45% would like to transfer know-how and expertise from these markets, while only 25% would actually like to purchase technology and products from these markets.
Our survey will be on-going for a few more months as we hope to gain a better understanding of this marketspace. We appreciate the participation of our survey respondents very much to date as all the information we collect is of great value to us and other stakeholders involved in this marketspace.
To share YOUR experience and views on the EEA & Norway grants, please complete the survey by clicking on the button below:
