How to Reach Financial Close in the EU Projects

The conference “Two Years in the EU – How to Reach Financial Close in the Projects Financed by the EU Funds“, organized by PwC Croatia in cooperation with the business weekly Lider, under the auspices of the European Commission, was held on 16 June 2015 in Zagreb. Given that, the question of financing the entire project is often a challenge when it comes to the EU funds, the organizers' intention was to answer this question during a panel that addressed four crucial interrelated sectors that are important for the Croatian growth and development: energy efficiency and renewable energy resources, urban development, research and innovations and SMEs in the sectors of tourism, production and services.

Gordana Kovačević, the President of Ericsson Nikola Tesla, Ivana Podnar Žarko, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Zagreb,  Stipe Orešković, Professor of the School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, Đuro Horvat, Director of Tehnix and Zvonimir Viduka, Director of Altpro, and the moderator Domagoj Račić, Director of the “Knowledge Network“ participated in the panel discussion: “How To Reach Financial Close in the Projects of Research, Development and Innovation“.

Gordana Kovačević expressed her satisfaction with the panel's topic, as she believes that this topic is not given enough attention, and added: “All the developed countries pay great attention to investments in research and development; as they represent the potential of growth and export. Of course, everything should be strategically approached to, and as well as the EU and Croatia have development strategies, a successful company should also have a good strategy.” During her speech, she also compared the EU strategy, Ericsson Nikola Tesla's strategy, the Company's research and development capacities and capabilities, collaboration with the universities and the EU funds: “The strategy EU 2020 for a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and the Horizon 2020, a new European Commission Research and Innovation program place an emphasis on connecting business sectors and science. A very important element of strategy implementation is ICT that transforms all areas of life, affecting people, business and society. Ericsson Nikola Tesla's vision is the Networked Society, through the implementation of numerous projects and solutions of M2M communication/Internet of Things, eHealth, eGoverment, intelligent transport systems and many others. In the future, everything that can benefit from being connected will be connected. This is not a simple task, and it demands the collaboration of various partners, connecting various industries and new business models. Research and development is a very important segment, in which we already have, as a strong company, invested a lot, because it is important for our survival and competitiveness, and the EU funds are an additional empowerment to this segment. “In her closure, she highlighted: “The government should send a message to the investors to invest in research and development in our country, because this is very important for further development of Croatia. We, the entrepreneurs, must think about the future all the time, transform in order to survive in a competitive global environment, build an innovative culture of high performance that will motivate talented experts to stay in Croatia“, with which the other panelists agreed.
 
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