The EU’s Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform celebrated its first year in action Tuesday for the development and manufacturing of critical technologies in Europe.
The platform (STEP) has over the past year pooled the investment firepower of 11 EU programmes, with over €15 billion supporting Europe’s competitiveness in three strategic sectors: digital technologies and deep-tech innovation, clean and resource-efficient technologies, and biotechnologies.
So far, €9.1 billion of EU funds have been mobilised towards STEP across five programmes managed by the EU Commission directly, namely the Digital Europe programme, the European Defence Fund, the EU4Health programme, Horizon Europe, and the Innovation Fund. An additional €6.1 billion of EU funds are being mobilised towards STEP thanks to reprogramming of cohesion policy funds by 11 pioneer EU Member States.
The Commission’s STEP Taskforce works hand in hand with the 27 EU Member States. The STEP Taskforce regularly engages with project promoters, managing authorities and relevant associations to improve the set-up and understand their investment needs. Extensive outreach and a dedicated survey answered by some 500 research and industry organisations confirmed the strong demand for simplification of access to EU funding.
The STEP Portal provides a one-stop, user-centric platform for project promoters to access all STEP funding opportunities across EU programmes and Member States. About 60 calls for proposals at EU and national levels have been published so far and about 40 of them remain open for submission.
The STEP Portal currently showcases the first 142 high potential projects that have been awarded the STEP Seal by the Commission. The project promoters are informed about funding opportunities as well as advisory services while their projects are made visible to private and public investors, including implementing partners like the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group or National Promotional Banks.
STEP seeks to leverage and de-risk private investment for EU high-potential projects. The STEP Taskforce is reaching out to private investors to promote STEP Seals projects, increasing their visibility and identifying investments paths.
