Firms lag in absorption of EU funds
Greece ranks quite high in the utilization of direct funding programs from the European Union, such as Horizon 2020, Life and Erasmus+. However, the share of utilization of these resources by private companies is relatively low, finds a study by EY Hellas and the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE), presented on Monday.
According to the study, in the 2014-2020 period Greece drew: 1.7 billion euros from the Horizon 2020 program for research and innovation, ranking fifth among EU countries based on the amount of funding in terms of gross domestic income; €44.6 million from Life for the environment and climate change, ranking eighth; and €42.5 million from Erasmus+ to support education, training, youth and sport, ranking 16th.
However, in the Horizon 2020 program, for example, the private companies that participated – 665 in total – received only 29.9% of the total funding of €1.7 billion. This percentage is lower than the participation of private enterprises in the total expenditure on research and development in Greece, which reached 40.2% in 2020. Therefore, in terms of the participation of private enterprises, Greece ranked 15th.
