INL participating in 17 proposals in the Recovery and Resilience Plans (PRRs)
Pedro Siza Vieira, Minister of Economy of Portugal, image via ‘Observador’
There were 144 candidacies involving almost 2,000 entities, including companies, business associations, research centers, and others, with investment intentions of around 14 billion euros. From these 144, 64 Agendas were selected, and INL - International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory had a 100% success rate participating in 17 proposals.
The agendas are divided into the following areas: Agrifood & Sea Economy (4), Health (3), Construction & Habitat (3), Transverse energy (1), Hydrogen (1), Transport, Mobility & Logistics (1), Automobile (1), Lithium (1), Footwear, Textiles, and Clothing (1), and Microelectronics (1). All will have access to the next stage for the submission of applications for funding consisting of final proposals of the Mobilising Agendas and the Green Agendas for Business Innovation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR).
As stated by Pedro Siza Vieira, Minister of Economy of Portugal, explained that this program “aims to attract companies of all sizes and entities in the scientific system, universities, research centers, technology centers, which could present projects to develop new products in several areas that could be oriented towards external markets or import substitution”. Most projects are aimed at productive investment (64%) and R&D&I [Research, Development, and Innovation] (33%). According to the government calendar, investments in the mobilizing agendas start in the summer of 2022.
The Green Agendas and PRR's were created after the serious impacts caused by the pandemic where the European Council created the Next Generation EU, a temporary recovery instrument, from which the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism is developed and with an execution period until 2026, and that will allow implementing a set of reforms and investments to build sustained economic growth. It will be financed by total resources of €16.6 billion, distributed by around €14 billion in grants and €2.7 billion in loans.