The last Innova-Fi Local Support Group meeting in Poland was held on-line on the 7th October 2022, with five stakeholders. ARRSA together with representatives of Managing Authority tackled the topic of Action Plan implementation and possible next steps for the sake of development of financial instruments market. MA also shared final conclusions on the new ROP European Funds for Silesia. ARRSA also shared the news what has been done since the last LSG meeting.
Main issues that have been tackled:
1. Implementation of the Action Plan
2. Invitation to the Exchange of Experience #10 to be held in Bielsko-Biała on 22-24.11.2022
3. Agreement with Startup Podbeskidzie Foundation on the common implementation of the Silesian Forum of Business Angels and Investors in 2023
4. Summary of the Exchange of Experience #9 held in Funchal 28-30.06.2022
5. Information about FI4INN, the new Interreg Central Europe project that will be implemented by ARRSA since 2023 with Marshal Office as an Associated Partner
Key Conclusions and recommendations:
1. The actions indicated in the Innova-Fi Action Plan are still valid for the implementation and the topics that they are concerning are still on the table
2. MA highlighted that while programming new FI implementation model good practices and inspirations gathered within the participation in Innova-Fu project activities were very useful and enlarging the allocation of repayable loans, mixing it with a grant support at the same time, was the decision undertaken with the impact of Innova-Fi project
3. ARRSA together with Startup Podbeskidzie Foundation, with the participation of relevant financial stakeholders and MA, will prepare a mapping of Silesian Business Angels and Investors (Action 2 from the Innova-Fi Action Plan) in 2023 and start the effort to prepare the proper platform/forum
4. Startup Podbeskidzie Foundation is preparing now a report Startups and IT Sector in Podbeskidzie region. ARRSA as a sponsor is involved in its creation. During the LSG meeting it was agreed that as soon as it will be revealed, ARRSA will share it with MA as source for better understanding the final beneficiary’s perspective on the funding and implementing of innovative ideas.
5. Short summary on the Funchal EoE #9 meeting was made with a special emphasis on the startup support mechanism (i.e. Digital Nomads Madeira program) as those are very interesting form the MA perspective
6. Success of FI4INN application in Interreg CE 2021-2027 1st call allow ARRSA and MA to continue cooperation on the improvements on regional financial instruments market. The main scope of the project will be related to measuring the impact of the financial instruments, apply new methods of their co-design and indicate effective monitoring and evaluation schemes. ARRSA and MA confirmed their common goals in terms of the field of the project
7. ARRSA also preliminary invited the MA representatives to participate in the Exchange of Experience #10 in Bielsko-Biała on 22-24.11.2022, especially to be a speaker on Day 1 Conference ang give an input on post-COVID support offered by MA, and to participate in Day 2 Benchmarking Workshop on financial instruments to support pandemic mitigation efforts.
