Synergies between the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and Horizon Europe

The transfer between cohesion policy funds and Horizon Europe is one of the new possibilities available in the 2021-2027 programming period in the context of synergies between EU funding sources and Malta is the first Member States to take advantage of this.

These transfers give an opportunity to Member States to strengthen participation in Horizon Europe where traditionally it has been low and to improve their success rate; to boost projects in areas identified as priorities through smart specialization; and to preserve administrative capacity at national/regional level in the selection and follow-up of R&I projects.

In particular, Member States may request the transfer of up to 5% of their resources under shared management to any other EU fund(s) or instrument(s) under direct or indirect management. Such resources must be used for the benefit of the Member State concerned but the implementation is carried out exclusively by the European Commission under Horizon Europe (HE) rules and no longer by the Managing Authority (MA) of shared management programmes.

Malta has been the first Member State to make use of this possibility, by asking to transfer 5 million euro from ERDF to Horizon Europe between 2023 and 2027.

As a result of the transfer, for the first 2023 batch of transfer, five Maltese ERA fellowships, initially not selected for funding by Horizon due to lack of sufficient budget, will now be financed thanks to the ERDF resources that Malta’s authorities decided to transfer to Horizon Europe.

The Grant Agreements for these 5 projects were signed in February 2024, following the normal Horizon Europe project cycle.

These projects will support the strengthening of the Maltese R&I system and will help to attract new talent in the country as the University of Malta will be able to host five additional researchers.