Funding

Programme funding from EU and Norway

The funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) also known as the EU-funding or the EU-support is approximately 87,6 MEUR. This amount corresponds to 65% of Swedish and Finnish costs. Swedish and Finnish partners need to finance 35% of their costs through own or other external sources.

In addition, the programme will allocate approximately 6,4 MEUR from Norwegian Interreg funding (IR) also known as IR-funding or IR-support for Norwegian partners. This amount corresponds to 50% of the Norwegian costs meaning that Norwegian partners need to finance 50% of their project costs through own or other external sources.

The funding from ERDF and IR will be allocated by the Steering Committees (SCs) after an assessment procedure made by the Joint Secretariat (JS). After the SC-meetings the project will be given the formal decisions from the Managing Authority (MA) regarding the ERDF-support and from the Norwegian Managing Organization (NMO) regarding the IR-support.

Co-financing

Projects need to have own financing or apply for external co-financing from other sources corresponding to 35% of the EU-budget and 50% of the Norwegian budget. Funding from other external (public and/or private funding) sources must be applied directly from the intended co-financier. Likewise, the payment applications regarding that co-financing must be sent directly to respective co-financier.

Co-financing Finland

Finnish national co-funding is applied from the Regional Council of Lapland and can be applied for only after the project has already received its grant decision from the Managing Authority for the Aurora programme. Applicants are still to provide planned amount of co-financing from Finnish national co-funding already in the application form for Aurora. The funding from Finnish national co-financing is a minimum of EUR 4 900 and a maximum of EUR 200 000 per project but no more than 70% of the total Finnish co-financing (when support is based on GBER rules no more than 15% of the total Finnish budget). If, for some reason, the Regional Council of Lapland cannot approve the applied amount of Finnish national co-funding, the partners must cover the lack of external funds with own financing or other financing. Beneficiaries can usually find external co-financing from the different regions, municipalities or other organisations having sources to finance Interreg projects.

Note! In a small-scale project wanting to apply for the national Finnish co-financing from Regional Council of Lapland, the amount to be applied must be at least 4 900 euros. There must be other Finnish co-financing of at least 2 100 euro for the amount from national Finnish co-financing to correspond to the limit of 70% of total Finnish co-financing. The total Finnish co-financing hence need to be at least 7 000 euros to make it possible to apply for the minimum amount of 4 900 euros from Regional Council of Lapland.

Co-financing Norway

Norwegian regional co-funding can be applied from Troms og Finnmarks fylkeskommune via regionalforvaltning.no at the same time as the application of funding from the Aurora programme is submitted in Min ansökan. Applicants are to provide the planned amount of co-financing from Norwegian regional budget in the application form for Aurora.  The funding from Norwegian regional co-financing can be no more than 20% of the total Norwegian budget. If, for some reason, Troms og Finnmarks fylkeskommune cannot approve the applied amount of Norwegian regional co-funding, the partners must cover the lack of external funds with own financing or other funding. Beneficiaries can usually find external co-financing from the different regions, municipalities or other organisations having sources to finance Interreg projects.

Co-financing Sweden

In Sweden there is no ear-marked co-financing for Interreg programmes. Beneficiaries can usually find external co-financing from the different regions, municipalities or other organisations having sources to finance Interreg projects.

Regional co-financing can as an example be applied from Region Norrbotten, Region Västerbotten and Region Västernorrland. Each of them has their own application and decision procedures. The applicant must be one of the Swedish partners and the budget in the application shall consist of the Swedish part of the budget. The regions prefer that potential beneficiaries take contact with officers working with project financing before an application is submitted. Applications are submitted to the regions via the system Min Ansökan.