Good practice:

Enterprise and Work 4.0 call

This call is the updated edition of a previous call launched by Marche Region on 2017 on “Manufacturing and Work 4.0” that was a great success. However, the need to start an internship before the grant was considered a critical issue for Trade Associations. Therefore, to meet the requests of many enterprises, with this call “Enterprise and Work 4.0” the obligation of starting the internship before submitting the application was postponed after the granting of the aid. For the rest, this call pursue the same objective as the call “Manufacturing and Work 4.0” that is to promote processes of technological and digital innovation with a view to Industry 4.0 of MSMEs supporting new tangible and intangible investments capable of producing an impact on their value chains.
The intervention provided for the granting of capital grants to companies for the implementation of investment programs aimed at the application of new digital technologies; they were closely connected to support measures for employment and training policies.
In addition, the companies have been granted a contribution for the staff costs related to the interns hosted equal to 60% of their total cost and an additional grant in the event of transformation of the internship into a subordinate work contract or hiring additional workers. “Additional” means with respect to the staff resulting at the time of the application and with professional profiles consistent with the investment program presented.

For the implementation of the "Enterprise and Work 4.0" call, the Marche Region made available a total amount of € 10,573,381.81 from the Marche Regional Operational Program, European Regional Development Fund 2014/2020 - Action 1.3.1 and Action 21.1

The Marche Region believes that the regional dimension is the most suitable for the implementation of the Industry 4.0 model.
With this call it intended to indicate its approach and the need to combine the traditional skills with new digital technologies.
Main results:
• N. of applications accepted/beneficiaries 110
• Financial support granted 10.5M€
• Total investments 41.3 M€
• N. of Internship started 110

In some cases it occurred that the trainee was no longer available after the approval. The enterprise had to find a replacement, which was not easy due to the characteristics of the cv requested. The same thing occurred when the trainee found another opportunity while the project was still ongoing

The learning and transfer potential of this practice is mainly related to the following aspects:
- The regional call was immediately integrated with the objectives of the National Industry 4.0 Plan, also giving the possibility to combine tax incentives (national) with financial ones (regional).
- With the launch of the call, the Marche Region wanted to point out its regional approach to Industry 4.0 in order to adapt its production system to the innovative approach represented by the "smart factory”.
- The selection of the applications was carried out with the evaluation method: the Commission proceeded to define a final ranking.